Why Playrix Is Bringing Rewarded Ads to Gardenscapes

Elderly Gardenscapes-style player standing on a gray stone path as alternating slabs with blue video icons stretch into the distance, symbolizing rewarded ads becoming part of game progression.

Playrix is testing rewarded ads in Gardenscapes, from free moves to extra coins. Here is what the new monetization strategy could mean for players.

Something important is changing inside Gardenscapes. Playrix appears to be testing a broader use of optional advertising, not as a separate feature, but as part of the game’s economy.

For many longtime players, especially those near the current end game, Gardenscapes still feels familiar. Coins, boosters, passes, and in-app purchases remain central. But some lower-progression accounts are beginning to see a different experience, including optional ads inside the To Do menu.

Rewarded ads are appearing at moments that directly affect progression and resource management. That makes these tests much more significant than a simple offer to watch a video for a small bonus.

Where Rewarded Ads Are Appearing

On a lower-progression Gardenscapes account we tested, optional ads appeared in several different situations within a short period:

Watching an ad in the To Do area could provide 50 coins.
After failing a level, watching an ad could provide two extra moves.
After winning a level, watching an ad could increase the coin reward.

These placements matter because they are tied directly to the normal flow of the game. They affect currency, failed levels, and post-level rewards.

Optional ads themselves are not completely new to Gardenscapes. Players have reported seeing them on selected accounts in previous years. What stands out now is how closely these offers are being tied to everyday gameplay decisions.

Why the Extra-Moves Offer Matters Most

The ad that appears after a failed level may be the most telling of the current tests.

Running out of moves has always been one of the key pressure points in Gardenscapes. When a player reaches the end of a level with only a few objectives left, the choice is usually simple: give up the attempt or spend coins to keep going.

Five additional moves normally cost 900 coins. A rewarded ad introduces another option: watch a video and receive two extra moves without spending those coins.

For the player, that can save resources. For Playrix, it creates revenue from an attempt that might otherwise end without any spending at all.

The timing is especially important. The offer appears when the player has already invested time in the level and may be only one or two moves away from winning.

Why Lower-Progression Players Make Sense as a Test Group

There is no official statement from Playrix confirming that rewarded ads are being tested according to level range, so that should not be treated as established fact.

What we do know is that Gardenscapes accounts do not always receive the same features at the same time. Playrix has used segmented testing for years, and older community discussions show that some players were offered ads while others never saw them.

A Reddit discussion from 2020, for example, included players who could watch ads for coins alongside longtime players who said the option had never appeared for them.

So optional advertising itself is not entirely new. What looks different now is the way ads are being tested across several parts of the level economy at once.

Lower-progression accounts would also be a natural place to test a broader system. A player can move through hundreds or even thousands of levels without ever making a purchase. Rewarded ads give Playrix a way to earn revenue from some of that activity while keeping the choice in the player’s hands.

The Bigger Shift: Hybrid Monetization

Gardenscapes has traditionally relied heavily on in-app purchases. Players can buy coins, passes, boosters, and other offers while still being able to play for free.

Playrix’s current support documentation continues to describe coins mainly as rewards from gameplay and events or as something players can purchase. Rewarded advertising is not presented as a standard source of currency for everyone.

Across mobile gaming, however, publishers increasingly combine in-app purchases with advertising. This approach is often described as hybrid or blended monetization.

AppLovin’s Blended ROAS framework is built around apps that generate revenue from both in-app purchases and advertising.

For Gardenscapes, that opens up another way to earn from its free-to-play audience. Players who want to spend can keep buying offers, while others can contribute through optional ad views.

There Are Signs Playrix Is Testing This Direction

In July 2026, mobile ad monetization specialist Felix Braberg looked at recent changes around Playrix and Gardenscapes and argued that the company appeared to be experimenting with both rewarded and interstitial advertising.

His analysis also pointed to a sharp increase in Gardenscapes downloads in markets including India and Indonesia and raised the possibility that Playrix was exploring a broader blended monetization strategy.

That does not mean Gardenscapes is about to become an ad-supported game, and there is no guarantee that every test currently visible will become permanent.

But the timing is hard to ignore. New ad placements are appearing inside the game while Playrix is also being watched for changes in how it monetizes and acquires players.

Why Playrix Would Move Carefully

Advertising can be a sensitive change in a game with such a large and established audience.

Someone who has played Gardenscapes for years without regularly seeing ads may react very differently from a new player who encounters optional videos from the beginning.

Testing the system with selected groups gives Playrix a chance to see which offers players actually use, whether the ads affect purchases, and whether they help keep people playing.

Rewarded ads also make that kind of testing easier because they are optional. Players who do not want them can ignore them, while those who find the rewards useful can choose to watch.

What About End-Game Players?

This is the part worth watching most closely.

At the time of writing, there is not enough evidence to say that these newer rewarded-ad placements have been widely introduced to players near the current maximum level.

That could be intentional. End-game players often represent years of retention. Some have large inventories, some regularly buy passes or other offers, and many know the game’s economy extremely well.

Playrix may have more reason to be cautious with that group than with accounts still moving through earlier progression.

If rewarded ads perform well without hurting purchases or pushing players away, expanding them to more accounts would make sense. For now, though, there is no confirmed end-game rollout.

What to Watch Next

The clearest signs will be wider availability across accounts and regions, new types of ad rewards, and changes in how often the offers appear.

The biggest signal would be the arrival of the same rewarded-ad system among high-level and end-game players.

Another important step would be an update to Playrix’s official support documentation that treats rewarded advertising as a normal part of the Gardenscapes economy rather than something available only to selected accounts.

Conclusion

The story is no longer simply that some Gardenscapes players can watch ads for rewards.

The more important question is whether Playrix is using these tests to reshape how the game makes money.

If rewarded ads eventually spread beyond selected lower-progression accounts, Gardenscapes could be moving toward a very different monetization model from the one longtime players have known for years.