A small idea stems from a big dream and turns into an online business. A Filipino publisher earns from posting Popunder ads on his copyright-free music & books portal. Ronaldo’s passion for lyrics and lines, paired with his skills in web development, has enabled him to make about $13,400 per month. This case study is about how he turned his pet project into a real source of income.
Disclaimer:
The story was translated by the Adsterra Content team. We had to depersonalize web screenshots and remove sensitive data to protect the publisher’s privacy. We tried to keep the copy authentic, but we may have misinterpreted local naming or slang. Please be tolerant of this 😉
I work part-time as a web developer, and I play guitar in a small band we started with my mates 10 years ago. We had original songs, but nowhere to upload them for free without giving away ownership to big platforms. Same problem with my friend who wrote short novels and poetry. She wanted to share her work, but she did not want to deal with strict copyright systems.
The idea came up accidentally, and it aimed to help authors like us exchange ideas and form a community. Later on, I simplified it to a copyright-free platform for amateurs, beginners, music and prose enthusiasts, open to everyone.
I want to tell this story properly, from the first peso I spent, to the month I saw nearly $20,000 in my revenue dashboard and felt on top of the world.
The concept of a free music and books portal
I own and manage a free portal for independent and aspiring artists who upload and share two things:
- Original MP3 music — solo artists, bands, percussionists, acoustic performers, spoken word
- Written works — short stories, poetry, novelettes, and e-books — strictly original, no labels, no publishing houses
Visitors can play music and read books for free, without creating an account. Artists can register and upload for free as well. There are no paywalls or subscriptions. In the beginning, I asked for donations so I could pay for hosting and all this stuff. But today, the entire business model depends on how much I make from advertising, specifically, one type, Popunders.
How much I spent on building the website
Before counting how much a Filipino publisher can really earn, I want to be transparent about the costs of building a website in the Philippines. Honestly, I don’t quite remember the initial costs, and the expenses were partly paid by my dad (he’s always supported me). But I know a lot of us in the Philippines start projects with very limited budgets. So, here’s how much I spent to get this site running.
Hosting for a music and books portal
If a media site hosts music for streaming and downloading, then a shared hosting account will not suffice. At a minimum, one needs a VPS. I picked a VPS provider with data centers located in Singapore for reasons of the extremely low latency from there to the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
| Item | Specification | Monthly Cost (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| VPS — Primary Server | 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 200 GB SSD (Singapore DC) | $24.00 |
| Object Storage / CDN | 500 GB for MP3 and PDF files via cloud storage | $12.00 |
| Bandwidth Overage | Extra traffic above included quota | ~$8.00 |
| Backup Service | Daily automated snapshots | $4.00 |
| Total Monthly Hosting | $48.00 |
For the ramp-up period, that was enough, but when traffic began to soar, I had to upgrade the plan, and that was the best decision I made. With thousands of users online, the initial stack was not sufficient.
Domain and SSL
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Domain name (.net) — 1 year | $11.99 one-time |
| SSL Certificate | $0 (Let’s Encrypt – auto‑renewed on VPS) |
| Domain Privacy Protection | $3.99/year |
Website development
I built the site myself using PHP and MySQL. The frontend is vanilla HTML, CSS, and a little jQuery. I did not use heavy frameworks because I wanted fast page load times — page speed matters a lot for SEO and for keeping visitors on the page long enough to trigger ads.
| Component | Approach | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Creator upload pipeline | PHP backend, queue via Redis, FFmpeg on server | $0 |
| User system (registration, login, profiles, verification) | PHP + MySQL, password hashing, token‑based email confirmations | |
| Frontend / UI | Vanilla HTML5, CSS3, minimal jQuery; mobile‑first | $0 |
| Media delivery & streaming (adaptive MP3 streaming, PDF.js viewer, download links) | Open-source Howler.js for audio, PDF.js for books, direct URL from CDN | $0 |
| Search Functionality across tracks, books, creators, tags | Meilisearch self‑hosted on VPS (better than MySQL FULLTEXT for typo‑tolerance & speed) | $0 |
| Spam / bot protection & frontend CDN for pages (media NOT proxied) | Cloudflare Free Plan (DNS + page caching only) | $0 |
| Development Time (personal) | ~280 hours over 10–12 weeks | Sweat equity |
Cloudflare is very important here. Not only does it protect from bot attacks, but it also acts as a CDN layer and helps improve page load times globally, including for visitors from South Africa and the United States.
Note: I didn’t mention adding user accounts and license agreement workflow, along with moderation, upload/transcoding, and creator analytics. Both these took about 50 hours (included in total development time).
Advertising network setup
There is no cost to join an advertising network as a publisher. You register, submit your site for review, and once approved, they give you ad codes to paste into your pages.
I use a major popunder network, Adsterra. It focuses on entertainment, gaming, sports, and VPN offers. Instant result is what Adsterra promises and accomplishes: I put an ad code in minutes, and ads started rotating.
Legal foundation
Despite running a copyright-free portal, I wanted to stay safe from possible risks, like when authors claim they had never allowed me to publish their content. Or, possible legal issues when authors post copyrighted materials. This part of the job was costly; I had to hire a lawyer and pay $1,100 for the following documents and terms.
Creator terms
- Before signing up, a creator must select a license: Creative Commons BY, BY‑SA, CC0, or a custom “free‑streaming‑download‑only” grant.
- Creators warrant they own the work and have all necessary rights.
- The site obtains a worldwide, royalty‑free, non‑exclusive license to host, stream, and distribute the work on the platform (terminable by the creator at any time).
Compliance
- A public DMCA / Philippine IP Code takedown form and a swift response mechanism.
Privacy & legal docs
- Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Consent (required for ad tracking) drafted for the Philippines’ Data Privacy Act. If you wonder how to create such docs, check the terms on the REKO portal.
I was also advised to integrate automatic fingerprinting pre‑screening for music. But that’s quite expensive, so I rely on manual moderation and user flagging.
Speaking of the total setup price, my first-year cost was about $2,000. If you’re on a budget, this is a significant amount, I agree. But now my site earns it back in less than a week!
After laying out technical and legal basics, let’s discuss the traffic story: Why so many Filipinos?
The traffic story: Why so many Filipinos?
When I first shared the site on a few Facebook groups for OPM (Original Pilipino Music) fans and indie writers, I did not expect what happened. Within two weeks, the portal was getting hundreds of visitors per day just from the Philippines alone.
This is not surprising once you understand our culture. Filipinos are among the most active online music consumers in Asia. We stream, share, and listen for hours. And we praise the talented ones! But many aspiring Filipino artists don’t like the Spotify distribution fees much, nor do they want to get lost in this endless audio sea. I offered a space where their music was welcome and protected.
The same is true for readers. Wattpad is popular but competitive. My platform is a quieter, more personal space. Visitors would come back every day or every few days to check new uploads. This repeated behavior is what drove the impression numbers so high.
By Month 5, the Philippines was sending 1.4 to 1.5 million ad impressions per month. That is not bot traffic. These are real, loyal, 52% new / 48% returning users who genuinely enjoy the content on the platform. This audience is the bloodstream of the platform, and the traffic that makes the highest income.
How no-click-attached Popunder ads make money
A lot of people look at my dashboard, see that clicks are zero, and think something is wrong. Nothing is wrong. That is exactly how popunder advertising is supposed to work. Let me explain.
What is a Popunder on a publisher’s site?
A Popunder is a separate web page served by an advertiser, opening in the background (new windows). The trigger for a popunder is a user action on the page: clicks, mouse hovers, taps, or simply content reading. Since clicks are not the only necessary action, counting clicks or CTR is not relevant. This is completely different from banner ads, which require the visitor to deliberately click an advertisement.
You get paid for views and further people’s activities on popunder pages: scroll depth, signups, orders, and more.
Which Popunder ads are highly monetized on a Filipino music platform?
I noticed a surge in CPM rates and revenues after my network pre-selected ads for me. It happened automatically some weeks after the registration.
- iGaming and sport predictions (i.e., sports tipping) return extremely high CPM, especially if targets are within Southeast Asia and South Africa.
- Dating/Social Sites – always perform strongly globally.
- VPN – a strong proposition especially for those living under restricted circumstances, or wanting greater privacy on the internet.
- Subscription-based content or streaming sites (like subscription services to TV and movies, or music) – relevant to the audience of a music site.
- Sweepstakes/Giveaways – relevant as you are reaching out to enthusiasts willing to risk a gamble.
CPM rates for geo-specific audiences
CPM means how much advertisers pay per 1,000 impressions. My manager explained that this varies enormously by country because advertisers pay based on the expected conversion value of that audience. Well, apart from other factors like traffic amount, quality of traffic, season-dependent ads, and many, many more.
| Country | Impressions | CPM rate | Revenue | My explanations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 2,061,075 | $2.767 | $5,702.49 | Premium market, high ad spend |
| Philippines | 1,430,139 | $1.514 | $2,164.87 | Volume compensates for rate |
| Malaysia | 502,800 | $4.036 | $2,029.28 | iGaming demand, high income tier |
| Indonesia | 745,144 | $1.571 | $1,170.79 | Large audience, mid-tier CPM |
| Canada | 397,395 | $2.496 | $992.03 | Strong English-speaking market |
| United Kingdom | 294,729 | $2.507 | $738.87 | Premium European market |
| India | 1,116,233 | $0.485 | $541.82 | Massive reach, lower ad rates and lower consumer activities |
| Singapore | 135,531 | $3.917 | $530.81 | Wealthy city-state, iGaming legal |
| Thailand | 164,449 | $2.959 | $486.57 | Growing digital market, decent rates but lower volumes |
| Germany | 244,925 | $1.820 | $445.70 | Moderate rates |
| TOTAL | 10,096,631 | $1.981 avg | $19,999.98 |
Note: The above represents the full 30-day reporting period.
Honest challenges and what I learned from them
This is not a story about everything being perfect. There were real problems along the way.
- Server crashes in Month 2 because I underestimated the bandwidth needs of MP3 streaming. Solution: CDN offloading for all media files.
- Revenue drops in January and February. In my experience, Q1 is the worst in advertising CPMs as advertiser budgets reset. I learned to expect 30% lower earnings in those months.
- Copyright grey areas: even though all content is original, some uploaders tried to sneak in cover songs. I added a manual review step for new uploads (I mentioned this above).
- Payments: most networks pay via wire transfer or cryptocurrency. Thankfully, I found Adsterra who’s ready to pay in peso (PHP) with a low fee. That’s far more beneficial.
Key metrics at a glance — month 15th
As a Filipino publisher who earns from ads, I consider it a major triumph to have built a platform that generates revenue while providing creators a space to share their work at no cost. Instead of a recap, I provide my key results below.
| Metric | Value |
| Total monthly ad impressions | 10,096,631 |
| Total clicks (popunder — expected zero) | 0 (Popunders are not CPC-based) |
| Average CTR (popunder — not applicable) | 0% (Popunders are not CPC-based) |
| Average CPM across all geos | $1.981 |
| Gross revenue | $19,999.98 |
| Largest traffic countriesThe United States The Philippines | 2,061,075 impressions / $5,702.491,430,139 impressions / $2,164.87 |
| Highest revenue country (United States) | 2,061,075 impressions / $5,702.49 |
| Highest CPM country (Malaysia) | $4.036 CPM / $2,029.28 revenue |
| Site monthly hosting cost | $48.00 |
| Site age at reporting month | 15 months |
| Repeat visitor rate | 48% |
| Average session duration | 9 min 40 sec |
| Mobile traffic share | 73% |
My final words
Most success stories skip the part where the server crashes and you are debugging at 2am. So I am sharing this story because I want to be honest about the numbers, the mistakes, and the boring reality of building something from scratch.
What I want you to take from this is simple: a niche that genuinely serves a community can build enough of a loyal audience to generate serious advertising revenue. The technology is available, the ad networks are accessible, and the barrier to entry is affordable.
Go try it yourself!