GHAN compared to the alternatives
There are five realistic ways to acquire desktop app users in 2026 — search and social auctions, the old installer-bundling networks, curated subscription bundles, affiliate and deal sites, and cross-promotion. This page says plainly what each one is good at and where GHAN fits.
The five options
| Channel | What you pay for | Works when | Fails when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search and social auctions | A click | Price point above ~EUR 40, or a subscription | You are bidding against higher-LTV products for the same keyword |
| Installer bundling (historical) | An install event | Never, now | Antivirus vendors correctly classify it as malware behaviour |
| Curated subscription bundles | A revenue share | Your app fits a curator's catalogue | You want to own the customer relationship |
| Affiliate and deal sites | A sale | You can discount deeply | Discounting damages your price anchor |
| Cross-promotion | A retained install | You already have an audience | You have no users yet |
Where GHAN sits
GHAN is cross-promotion with the settlement layer the category never had. The idea of desktop apps promoting each other is not new and not clever; what killed it every previous time was the absence of a referee, so the cheapest way to earn was always to cheat.
The three things GHAN adds to an old idea:
- A definition of the unit that is hard to fake. A cleared install requires two independent cryptographic signatures and 48 hours of survival.
- A ledger neither side can edit. Append-only at the database level, both parties signed, retrievable raw.
- A gate with teeth, re-run weekly. Notarisation, malware scanning, domain age, contact verification, binary identity.
Detailed comparisons
- GHAN vs. ironSource installcore and OpenCandy — what the previous generation did and which specific mechanism killed them
- GHAN vs. Google Ads for desktop apps — why the auction maths breaks for one-time licences
- GHAN vs. Setapp and curated bundles — owning the customer versus renting a shelf
- GHAN vs. CrossPromo — free barter for App Store apps versus paid installs outside the stores
- GHAN vs. affiliate networks — paid on a sale versus paid on a retained install
- Mac app distribution platforms compared — Setapp, the Mac App Store, direct sales, bundles and cross-promotion
The honest limitation
GHAN needs you to already have users. It is a way to convert attention you have into users you do not, at a fixed exchange rate. If you launched last week and have three hundred installs, GHAN cannot help yet, and no amount of network design changes that. Come back when you have an audience, and in the meantime the gate's six-month domain-age requirement will have expired anyway.
Questions people ask about this
What is the best way to acquire desktop app users?
There is no single best channel, but the ranking changes sharply with price point. Below about EUR 40 one-time, search and social auctions usually cannot pay back, because you are bidding against subscription products with far higher lifetime value for the same click. Above that, paid search works. Cross-promotion is the channel whose economics do not depend on your price point, because the other side of the trade is attention you already own rather than money you have to find.
Is cross-promotion better than paid search?
They do different jobs. Paid search captures people already looking for what you make, which is the highest-intent traffic that exists and correspondingly the most expensive. Cross-promotion reaches people who are demonstrably installing desktop software right now but were not searching for you. If you can afford search, run search. Cross-promotion is what you do with the audience you already have while you cannot.
Are there other desktop cross-promotion networks?
Very few that are alive. The 2010s generation - OpenCandy, ironSource installcore, InstallMonetizer - is gone, having been flagged by antivirus vendors after monetising installer-time placements. AdDuplex served Microsoft Store apps and shut down in 2023. That absence is the opportunity and also the warning, and it is why GHAN's design constraints read as reactions to specific historical failures.
Should a brand new app use GHAN?
Only after it can pass the gate, which requires a domain at least six months old. That rules out week-one launches deliberately. A new app's first users come from a launch, a community and search; GHAN is for the stage after that, when you have an audience worth trading.
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