Side by side, field by field
| Requirement | AppLovin | Unity Ads |
|---|---|---|
| File structure | Single self-contained HTML file | Single self-contained HTML file |
| Size cap | 5 MB | 5 MB |
| Size recommendation | No stated soft target below the cap | 5 MB hard cap, 2 MB recommended |
| Ad interface | MRAID 2.0 | MRAID 2.0 |
| External requests | Prohibited entirely | Prohibited entirely |
| Click-through API | mraid.open(url) | mraid.open(url) |
| MRAID ready-state handling | Must wait for ready before any MRAID call or layout decision | Must wait for ready before any MRAID call or layout decision |
| Orientation | Must render correctly in both portrait and landscape | No forced-orientation requirement |
| Auto-play audio | Prohibited before user interaction | Prohibited before user interaction |
| Auto-click | Explicitly prohibited alongside auto-play audio | Not separately called out in the spec |
The differences that actually exist
1. Orientation
AppLovin requires a playable to render correctly in both portrait and landscape — its inventory serves both, and a layout that only makes sense one way has to still be usable in the other. Unity Ads has no equivalent requirement in its spec; there's no forced-orientation rule to satisfy. In practice this means an AppLovin-compliant build that's been orientation-tested is already over-engineered for Unity Ads on this specific point, not under.
2. The size recommendation
Both cap at 5 MB hard. Unity Ads' spec goes further and states a recommended target of 2 MB for consistent load performance across devices — a softer, stated goal beyond the pass/fail line. AppLovin's spec doesn't carry that same explicit recommendation; its rule is the 5 MB ceiling and nothing softer stated beyond it. A build sized for Unity Ads' 2 MB guidance will always clear AppLovin's cap comfortably; the reverse isn't guaranteed.
3. Auto-click, as a named rule
AppLovin's notes explicitly prohibit auto-clicking the CTA in the same breath as auto-playing audio. Unity Ads' stated rule only names audio autoplay. This is a narrow difference — programmatically firing a CTA without a real tap is bad practice everywhere and likely to cause problems on any network — but as a matter of what's literally written into each spec, only AppLovin calls it out by name.
That's the full list. There's no divergence in click API, MRAID version, file shape, or the external-request rule — those four are the ones most likely to actually break a build, and they're identical.
What this means if you're building for both
If you already have a compliant AppLovin build, the only real work to also satisfy Unity Ads is dropping the size target down toward 2 MB if you were riding close to 5 MB, and renaming/re-pointing the output — the orientation and auto-click handling you already did for AppLovin doesn't hurt anything on Unity Ads' side. Going the other direction, from a Unity Ads build to AppLovin, means adding a landscape check you may not have done and confirming nothing auto-fires the CTA — everything else carries over untouched.
How PlayableKit handles both from one source export
Because the two specs are this close, it's tempting to assume one output file could just be reused for both networks. It can't, safely — a build within AppLovin's untested-orientation blind spot, or one sitting at 4.8 MB, will pass AppLovin and get flagged as a soft-fail risk on Unity Ads. PlayableKit doesn't rely on the overlap; it treats each network as its own target from the same source. Upload one Unity Playworks/Luna export once, select both AppLovin and Unity Ads, and PlayableKit generates two separate single-file HTML packages — each with assets embedded as base64/base122, MRAID 2.0 wiring gated behind ready-state, and its own size check against the right threshold (5 MB for AppLovin, 2 MB target for Unity Ads) — rather than shipping one file and hoping the near-identical specs cover both cases completely.
For the individual full specs, common errors, and best practices for each network on its own, see AppLovin Playable Ads and Unity Ads Playable Ads. If you're targeting more than these two from a single export, Multi-Network Playable Export covers the same one-upload-many-outputs approach across the full set of supported networks.