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Taboola vs Outbrain (2026): Native Ad Platforms Compared for Performance Teams

Taboola vs Outbrain, verified 2026-10-26. Outbrain is now part of Teads but still sells self-serve as Amplify ($20/day minimum). Taboola sells via Realize with no published floor. Minimums, bidding and creative specs side by side.

Prices and feature claims last verified against both vendors' own published pages on 2026-10-26.

Most "Taboola vs Outbrain" articles were written for a market that no longer exists. Outbrain isn't an independent company any more. It bought Teads in February 2025 and took the Teads name in June 2025. Taboola renamed its own ad platform Realize the same year. So the first question for a media buyer is no longer which network is bigger. It's what exactly you are buying from each company today, on what terms. Several of the pages ranking for this query don't cover that.

Here is how we built this comparison.

  • Both vendors' own documentation, read on 2026-10-26. Taboola's Realize help center and Backstage API docs. Outbrain's advertiser help center, ad specs page and buying options page. Corporate facts come from each company's investor releases and SEC filings. Every source is listed at the end.
  • We didn't run campaigns on either platform. We hold no spend on Taboola or Outbrain, so this page has no CTR or CPA comparison of our own. Performance numbers here are each vendor's own claims and are labeled that way.
  • What we added: a who-owns-what map after the merger, a side-by-side table of minimums, bidding and creative specs, one creative kit that fits both platforms' limits, and a look at what each company's latest quarterly results say about where advertiser money goes.

Neither product is ours, and Soku doesn't integrate with either. Where Soku fits is a short note at the end.

The Short Answer

  • Pick Outbrain (Amplify) if you want a published, low entry point and value-based bidding. The minimum is $20 a day. Conversion Bid Strategy includes Target ROAS, and Max Conversions can start before you have conversion data.
  • Pick Taboola (Realize) if you want more formats from one self-serve login (native, display, performance video, vertical, carousel and app promotion) and an in-form creative agent. Plan for a learning budget of 10 to 15 times your target CPA per day, which is Taboola's own guidance for Maximize Conversions.
  • If you can afford both, test both. The two networks reach different publishers, and the vendors' reach figures aren't measured the same way. Run the same landing page and the same conversion event on each for at least a week, which is the minimum run Outbrain's help center suggests. Then put more budget behind the winner.
  • Don't treat either as a search or social replacement. Both sell recommendation and feed placements on publisher pages. People who see those ads are reading, not shopping, so plan for cold traffic.

Who You Are Actually Buying From in 2026

Diagram of the 2026 corporate map. Taboola.com Ltd. (Nasdaq TBLA) is independent and sells through Realize, launched 26 February 2025, with self-serve sign-up, CPC pricing by default, native, display, performance video, vertical, carousel and app promotion formats, four bidding strategies and the Abby Creative Agent. Teads Holding Co. (Nasdaq TEAD, formerly Outbrain Inc., renamed 9 June 2025) runs Outbrain Direct Response by Teads, whose self-serve dashboard is still called Outbrain Amplify with a $20 a day minimum, and Teads Enterprise for brand and CTV. A timeline below shows Taboola agreeing to buy Outbrain in October 2019, the deal being called off in September 2020, Outbrain closing its Teads acquisition on 3 February 2025, Taboola launching Realize on 26 February 2025, and Outbrain Inc. being renamed Teads Holding Co. on 9 June 2025
Diagram of the 2026 corporate map. Taboola.com Ltd. (Nasdaq TBLA) is independent and sells through Realize, launched 26 February 2025, with self-serve sign-up, CPC pricing by default, native, display, performance video, vertical, carousel and app promotion formats, four bidding strategies and the Abby Creative Agent. Teads Holding Co. (Nasdaq TEAD, formerly Outbrain Inc., renamed 9 June 2025) runs Outbrain Direct Response by Teads, whose self-serve dashboard is still called Outbrain Amplify with a $20 a day minimum, and Teads Enterprise for brand and CTV. A timeline below shows Taboola agreeing to buy Outbrain in October 2019, the deal being called off in September 2020, Outbrain closing its Teads acquisition on 3 February 2025, Taboola launching Realize on 26 February 2025, and Outbrain Inc. being renamed Teads Holding Co. on 9 June 2025

Taboola is still an independent public company (Nasdaq: TBLA). On 26 February 2025 it introduced Realize, described as a platform for "performance outcomes at scale beyond search and social", and opened it to all performance advertisers. The help center now lives at realize.com, while sign-in still runs through authentication.taboola.com. The Realize homepage lists six format families: Vertical Ads, Performance Video, Carousel, App Promotion, Display Ads and Native Ads. It claims reach across "11,000+ premium publishers" and "over 600M daily active users".

Taboola tried to buy Outbrain once. The deal was agreed in October 2019 and called off in September 2020. Taboola's own post on why it fell through says the original terms no longer made sense given the two companies' relative performance.

Outbrain went the other way and became the buyer. Outbrain completed its acquisition of Teads on 3 February 2025 for $625 million in cash plus 43.75 million shares. On 9 June 2025 it completed the change of its corporate name from Outbrain Inc. to Teads Holding Co. and began trading as TEAD the next day. The release calls the combined company "directly partnered with more than 10,000 publishers and 20,000 advertisers".

The Outbrain brand didn't disappear, though. On 2026-10-26:

  • outbrain.com presents the performance business as Outbrain Direct Response (ODR) by Teads, "a subsidiary of the new Teads". The ODR rebrand post is dated April 2025.
  • The self-serve product is still called Outbrain Amplify. The buying options page says you can "buy directly from Outbrain Amplify, or programmatically via the DSP of your choice", and every Get Started button points to my.outbrain.com/amplify/funnel.
  • The my.outbrain.com login page now carries the Teads logo and lists [email protected] for help.
  • Teads' own site sells brand, omnichannel and CTV campaigns through a contact form, and its login link is labeled "Teads Ad Manager". That is a separate buying path, aimed at brand campaigns rather than direct response, so we leave it out of this comparison.

So the like-for-like comparison for a performance team is Taboola Realize vs Outbrain Amplify. Both are self-serve, charge per click by default, and have conversion pixels and automated bidding.

Side-by-Side: Minimums, Bidding and Specs

Everything here was read on 2026-10-26 from the linked vendor page. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the table says so.

Taboola (Realize)Outbrain (Amplify, ODR by Teads)
Parent companyTaboola.com Ltd. (Nasdaq: TBLA)Teads Holding Co. (Nasdaq: TEAD), formerly Outbrain Inc.
Self-serve sign-upYes, "Create Free Account" on realize.comYes, my.outbrain.com/amplify/funnel
Default pricing modelCPC. CPM or viewable CPM only "for specific accounts" (API doc)CPC (pricing and billing)
Minimum budgetNone published$20, €20 or £20 a day; $600 a month for monthly budgets (help)
Recommended learning budgetDaily cap at least 10 to 15x expected CPA, or $50 if CPA is under $5 (help)Enough to get 5 conversions a day on Max Conversions, 7 a day on Target CPA or Target ROAS (help)
Minimum CPCEnforced per currency; values change, fetch via API (API doc)Not published in the help articles we read
Budget typesDaily, monthly, lifetime; optional Pace Ahead (+20% a day)Daily (default), monthly, campaign; standard, accelerated or daily-target pacing
OverspendMonthly and lifetime budgets "will not exceed" the set amountDaily spend "may be up to 20% more" than budget; daily target can run 35% over
Card processing feeNot covered in the Realize articles we readAround 3% on top of media spend (4% in Brazil)
Automated biddingMaximize Conversions, Target CPA, Enhanced CPC (SmartBid)Max Conversions, Target CPA, Target ROAS, Semi Manual
Manual biddingFixed CPC, with site-level bid modifiersManual CPC, with section-level CPC adjustments
Value-based biddingNot among the four API strategiesTarget ROAS, needs a conversion value
Needs tracking to startMax Conversions and Target CPA need the Taboola PixelMax Conversions and Semi Manual can start without a conversion
Conversion trackingTaboola Pixel or server-to-serverOutbrain pixel, plus offline conversion import
Formats in self-serveNative (incl. carousel), display, performance video; display and video need account enablementStandard Native, Clip, Carousel, App Install; video and high-impact display listed on the specs page
Native image1200x674 recommended (16:9), 400x350 min, 5 MB, JPEG/PNG/GIF/BMP1200x800 (3:2), PNG/JPG, 2.5 MB
Headline34 to 45 characters best, 60 max60 recommended, 100 max
Brand name30 characters max60 characters max (25 on Clip)
Description180 to 200 recommended, 250 max150 characters max, optional
Short motionMotion Ads: MP4/MOV/GIF, 16:9, 1067x600, 15 s max, 50 MB (GIF 5 MB)Clip: GIF or MP4, 3:2, 15 s max, 30 MB
VideoMP4/MOV, 50 MB, 6 to 30 s preferred, 90 s max, VAST 2.0/3.0Outstream: up to 60 s, 1 to 250 MB, VAST 2.0 to 4.0
CarouselSupported in native campaigns3 to 10 cards, 1:1, 300 to 1200 px
AI creative toolsAbby Creative Agent (beta) generates headlines, descriptions and visuals from your landing page"Scalable creative automation" mentioned on the advertiser page; no self-serve tool documented in the help articles we read
AI content disclosureai_disclosure field on every ad; Taboola renders an AI label where laws require itNot documented in the help articles we read
Programmatic accessProgrammatic native and video through a Realize repBuy through "the DSP of your choice, including Outbrain's native DSP"

Two caveats about the specs. Outbrain's ad specs page is dated June 2023 in its metadata, though it's still linked from the current navigation. Taboola runs several versions of its creative best-practices article. We used the July 2026 version, and the programmatic creative article lists different limits for programmatic buys: a 1 MB image limit and a 1000x600 minimum. Check the live limits in the ad creation form before you produce assets at scale.

Minimums and Budgets in Practice

Outbrain makes the entry point explicit. Its budget and duration article says "the minimum daily budget you need to create a campaign is 20USD, 20EUR, or 20GBP per day". The CPC and budget article adds that a monthly budget must be at least $600. A fixed-length campaign budget must cover at least $20 a day: a $50 budget over three days won't save, because three days requires at least $60. Outbrain also suggests starting with a high CPC during a discovery period of "usually around 2 weeks" and running for at least a week.

The billing article has two details that affect what you'll actually spend. Clicks on ads served before your budget capped are still charged, so a day can run up to 20% over budget. Clicks after you pause a campaign can also be billed. And credit card accounts pay a processing fee of around 3% on top of media spend. Billing is by threshold: when spend crosses a round amount, the card is charged, and a failed charge disables the account immediately.

Taboola publishes no floor, but its guidance implies one. The Realize budget and pacing article describes daily, monthly and lifetime budgets and a Pace Ahead option that adds 20% a day, without a minimum. The Maximize Conversions article is where the real number sits. Your "daily cap should be no less than 10-15X your expected CPA (or $50 if your expected CPA is below $5)". Taboola's example is a $25 CPA, which means a $250 daily cap. So a team chasing $40 leads should plan for roughly $400 to $600 a day while the algorithm learns. On Outbrain, the published floor is $20 a day, but its 5-conversions-a-day guidance for Max Conversions points to a similar learning budget.

Taboola also enforces a minimum CPC per currency. The API reference says bids below it are rejected with an error, and the minimum is applied to site-level bids too. It also says "the minimum bid per currency may change from time to time". The sample response shows 0.01 for USD and EUR, but that's an example payload, not a price list. We couldn't read live values without an account.

Bidding Models Compared

Both platforms now steer you toward automated, conversion-based bidding. The differences are in what each one needs before it can start, and what it lets you optimize for.

Taboola lists four bid strategies in its API:

  • Maximize Conversions is recommended for new campaigns. It's fully automated and requires the Taboola Pixel. You set a budget, not a CPC, and you can't boost or lower bids on individual sites. You can still block sites.
  • Target CPA is Maximize Conversions plus a CPA goal. Taboola's help center says to wait until a campaign has "at least 50 conversions over 7 consecutive days" and a stable CPA before setting one.
  • Enhanced CPC, which Taboola also calls SmartBid, uses your CPC as a baseline and adjusts it automatically. It "works best" with the Pixel installed.
  • Fixed CPC is fully manual, with site-level bid modifiers. If you create a campaign through the API with a CPC and no strategy, this is the default.

Outbrain's Conversion Bid Strategy has four modes:

  • Max Conversions (formerly Fully Automatic) and Semi Manual (formerly Semi Automatic) "can begin optimizing without a conversion created as the system will optimize based on prior network learnings".
  • Target CPA and Target ROAS need a conversion event. Target ROAS also needs a conversion value, passed dynamically or entered in the dashboard.

Outbrain's best-practice article gives specific operating rules. Wait 48 hours before making changes. Track a soft conversion (10 to 20% conversion rate) alongside the hard one. Don't optimize toward a pixel that converts at 40% or more. Make changes at the start of the day, Eastern time.

The practical gap: if you sell products with very different basket sizes and want to bid on revenue, Outbrain documents a way to do it and Taboola's API doesn't. If you're starting with no conversion data, Outbrain's Max Conversions can launch on network learnings. Taboola's automated strategies need the Pixel installed, and Taboola recommends holding off on Target CPA until you have 50 conversions in a week.

One Creative Kit That Runs on Both

The two platforms' image ratios don't match. Taboola prefers 16:9 and Outbrain's Standard Native spec is 1200x800, which is 3:2. Their text limits differ too. Rather than design twice, build a kit around the stricter limit for each field. This is our own synthesis of the two spec pages above.

AssetMake itWhy
Master imageOne high-resolution image with the subject centered and no text near the edgesBoth platforms crop: Taboola previews 16:9, 6:5, 2:1, 1:1 and 1.91:1 crops; Outbrain pads mismatched Clip ratios with blur
Taboola export1200x674 (16:9), JPEG, under 5 MBTaboola's recommended size
Outbrain export1200x800 (3:2), JPG, under 2.5 MBOutbrain's Standard Native spec and the lower file size limit
Square export1200x1200 (1:1)Outbrain carousel and App Install; accepted by Taboola
Headline60 characters or fewer, main point firstBoth vendors recommend 60; Taboola's hard maximum is 60
Brand name25 characters or fewerOutbrain Clip allows 25; Taboola allows 30
Description150 characters or fewerOutbrain's maximum; within Taboola's range
Short motion15 seconds or less, MP4, under 30 MB, one 16:9 and one 3:2 cutBoth cap short motion at 15 seconds; Outbrain's 30 MB limit is lower
Variants4 to 6 headlines and a similar number of images per landing pageTaboola's own testing recommendation

If any image in the kit was made or substantially changed with generative AI, Taboola's API has an ai_disclosure field for each ad (and each carousel card). Taboola passes that flag to publishers and renders "the required user-facing AI-content label" where AI-disclosure laws apply. The help articles we read on Outbrain's side don't document an equivalent field.

Reach: Each Vendor's Own Numbers

Neither company counts reach the same way, so these figures can't be compared directly:

  • Taboola: "over 600 million daily active users across some of the best publishers in the world", per its Q2 2026 results release, and "11,000+ premium publishers" on realize.com. Named publishers include NBC News and Yahoo, plus device makers Samsung and Xiaomi.
  • Outbrain: the advertiser page shows 0.4 billion monthly consumers, 1.9K premium media environments and 0.2 billion exclusive daily impressions.
  • Teads overall: "2 billion+ consumers across 10,000 properties and 50 markets" on teads.com, which includes the brand and CTV business that doesn't sell through Amplify.

Daily active users, monthly consumers and properties measure different things. The useful reach check is the one you run yourself: export the site-level or section-level report after a week and see which publishers your budget actually landed on.

What Each Company's Own Filings Say

Both companies are public, so their filings show things their sales pages don't.

Bar chart of Q2 2026 revenue split into traffic acquisition cost and the remainder. Taboola: revenue $476.8 million, traffic acquisition cost $300.7 million or 63.1 percent, remainder $176.1 million, revenue up 2.4 percent year over year. Teads including Outbrain: revenue $284.6 million, traffic acquisition cost $161.2 million or 56.6 percent, remainder $123.4 million, revenue down 17 percent year over year. Teads revenue includes its CTV and brand business, so the mix is not like for like
Bar chart of Q2 2026 revenue split into traffic acquisition cost and the remainder. Taboola: revenue $476.8 million, traffic acquisition cost $300.7 million or 63.1 percent, remainder $176.1 million, revenue up 2.4 percent year over year. Teads including Outbrain: revenue $284.6 million, traffic acquisition cost $161.2 million or 56.6 percent, remainder $123.4 million, revenue down 17 percent year over year. Teads revenue includes its CTV and brand business, so the mix is not like for like

Taboola is growing slowly and leans heavily on Yahoo. In the quarter to 30 June 2026, revenue was $476.8 million, up 2.4%, and ex-TAC gross profit was $192.4 million, up 11.8%. Traffic acquisition cost, the money paid to publishers for placements, was $300.7 million, or 63% of revenue. Taboola's 10-Q for the quarter says Yahoo, which holds Taboola shares and a board seat, accounted for $79.3 million of revenue. That's 16.6% of the total, up from 10.0% a year earlier. Taboola also paid Yahoo $104.3 million in traffic acquisition cost. The same quarter included a $12.2 million write-off of prepayments to publishers it dropped as underperforming. For advertisers, that means a large and growing share of Realize delivery comes from Yahoo's properties. Check whether that inventory suits your offer in the site report.

Teads' performance business is shrinking. Teads' Q2 2026 results show revenue of $284.6 million, down 17%, and ex-TAC gross profit of $123.4 million, down 14%. CTV grew 67% and is now 13% of revenue. CEO David Kostman said the "Direct Response and SME business faced open-web headwinds", and the company suspended its full-year 2026 guidance, citing "the volatility of the Direct Response and SME business". Direct Response is the segment Outbrain Amplify belongs to. A shrinking segment doesn't make the platform worse to buy on. It's still worth knowing which way the parent company is investing: toward CTV and enterprise brand work.

The two companies' gross-profit metrics aren't defined identically. Taboola's ex-TAC gross profit adds back a non-cash amortization and the one-time write-off. Teads' figure is simply revenue minus TAC. In the chart above we show revenue minus TAC for both so the bars are comparable.

When Each One Makes Sense

Taboola (Realize) fits better when:

  • you want display, performance video, vertical and native from one self-serve login (display and video must be enabled on your account first)
  • your conversion volume can support Taboola's 10 to 15x CPA learning budget
  • you want help writing ads: Abby Creative Agent drafts headlines, descriptions and visuals from your landing page, with headlines pre-screened against Taboola's content guidelines
  • your audience reads Yahoo, MSN, NBC News and the other large publishers Taboola names

Outbrain (Amplify) fits better when:

  • you want to start small: the floor is $20 a day and the rules are spelled out
  • you bid on revenue: Target ROAS is documented
  • you have no conversion history yet: Max Conversions starts on network learnings
  • you also buy through a DSP: Outbrain sells the same native supply programmatically, with Moat, DoubleVerify and IAS verification

Neither fits when your product needs high purchase intent and your search and social campaigns aren't yet working. Both sell to people who are reading articles, not shopping. That suits offers that need some explaining first, plus advertorials, quizzes and other landing pages built for cold traffic. It doesn't suit a product page that expects a ready buyer. For the wider open-web buying picture, see our guides to programmatic advertising tools and DSP platforms. If Teads' CTV side is what interests you, see CTV advertising platforms.

Where Soku Fits

Since we build in this space: Soku has no Taboola, Outbrain or Teads integration. It can't connect to a Realize or Amplify account, read their reporting or launch campaigns on them. Soku's ad-account connections cover Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, X and ChatGPT Ads. If native is your main channel, Soku won't manage it for you.

What Soku can do for a native campaign is the creative. The AI Image & Video Resizer recomposes an existing ad into 16:9, 1:1 or 4:3 in image mode by extending the frame rather than stretching it, which covers Taboola's three accepted ratios. The AI Banner Generator renders new images at a ratio you choose. You download the files and upload them to Realize or Amplify yourself. The resizer's image mode doesn't offer 3:2, so you'd still crop the Outbrain 1200x800 version from the 16:9 or 4:3 master. If you use AI-generated images on Taboola, set the AI disclosure on each ad.

Sources

All read on 2026-10-26:

Comparing something else? Browse all competitor breakdowns.