Ad networks
Websites Using Freestar
Freestar is a US monetisation partner for larger publishers, running header bidding across web, apps, AMP and email. It is the network of choice for a lot of sports, gaming and enthusiast sites rather than lifestyle blogs. The publishers below are verified from public advertising records.
Create a free account to look up a specific domain.
704 more Freestar sites
Create a free account to see more of the list — no card needed.
What Freestar is
Freestar was founded by David Freedman and is now run by CEO Kurt Donnell, with around 195 staff working remotely across more than ten countries. It sells two different things, and the difference matters when you are comparing it to a Mediavine or a Raptive:
- Fully Managed Monetization is the familiar arrangement. Freestar handles demand partners, layout, yield and reporting, and the publisher does nothing but approve
- Flex is header bidding technology for publishers who already employ ad ops people. You bring your own demand seats and run them on Freestar's stack instead of building one
That second product is the tell. A network offering to sit underneath your existing ad ops team is aiming at publishers large enough to have one, which is a different customer from the solo blogger that most managed networks court. Freestar also monetises apps, AMP pages and email newsletters, not just websites.
Requirements
Freestar publishes no traffic threshold, no revenue floor and no eligibility page. Its sign-up route is a conversation with its publisher development team rather than an application form with a number attached.
The absence is worth taking at face value rather than filling in with a rumoured figure. What the list below does show is the kind of site that clears whatever bar exists in practice: established sports, gaming, technology and news properties, heavily weighted toward sites with their own brand and an audience that arrives directly. If your site is in that bracket, the conversation is worth having. If you are a new blog looking for your first managed network, this is not the one that will say yes.
What publishers typically earn
There is no public rate card, and Freestar reports results as revenue uplift against a publisher's previous setup rather than as an RPM. Because its roster skews toward sports, gaming and technology, the honest expectation is a wide spread: those categories carry lower advertiser rates than finance or home, but the sites carrying them are usually large enough that the volume matters more than the rate. Ad block recovery is a meaningful part of the pitch for exactly this audience, since tech and gaming readers block ads more than any other group.
How this list is built
Membership is established from public advertising records — the standardised files and tags that networks and publishers maintain so advertisers can confirm who is authorised to sell a site's inventory. Nothing here is self-reported by the site, and nothing is inferred from how a page looks.
Records are cleaned before they reach this list: duplicate entries for the same site are collapsed, placeholder and internal test entries are discarded rather than guessed at, and a site is listed once no matter how many times it appears upstream. Freestar's records include a handful of literal test entries and one row with three different domains typed into a single field; those are rejected rather than parsed into something that looks tidier than the source. See our methodology for what we check and what we deliberately leave out.
The honest caveat: authorisation records can lag reality slightly when a publisher leaves a network, which is why entries are re-checked over time and carry the date they were last confirmed.
Frequently asked questions
How many websites use Freestar?
Our verified index holds roughly 730 Freestar publisher domains. That is a smaller list than Mediavine or Ezoic, and it reflects the business rather than incomplete data: Freestar works with fewer, larger publishers instead of thousands of small blogs. The exact figure is shown at the top of this page.
What are the requirements to join Freestar?
Freestar does not publish a traffic minimum, a revenue floor, or an eligibility checklist. Publishers start with a conversation with its publisher development team. In practice its roster is made up of established sports, gaming, technology and news sites rather than new blogs.
How do you know these sites use Freestar?
Membership is established from public advertising records — the standardised files and tags used across the industry to confirm who is authorised to sell a site's ad inventory. It is not self-reported by the site, not scraped from a directory, and not estimated.
What is the difference between Freestar Managed and Freestar Flex?
Fully Managed Monetization is a white-glove service where Freestar runs everything. Flex is the header bidding technology on its own, for publishers who already have an in-house ad ops team and want to bring their own demand partners. Managed is the equivalent of what Mediavine or Raptive sell; Flex has no real equivalent at those networks.
Does Freestar work with apps as well as websites?
Yes. Freestar monetises apps, AMP pages and email newsletters alongside standard web inventory. This directory lists websites only, so app-only publishers will not appear here.
How often is this list updated?
It is rebuilt from the network's published records and re-checked on a rolling basis. Each row carries the date it was last confirmed, and sites that leave are marked removed rather than quietly deleted.