We used Oden to analyze how Pixalate, DoubleVerify, IAS, and MOAT actually perform on ad fraud detection, what they cost, and how users feel about them. If you’re staring at RFPs and sales decks that all claim “industry-leading” fraud protection, this breakdown is for you. We pulled from official product pages, public pricing where available, G2 reviews, Sitejabber, industry analyses, and Reddit discussions to separate signal from noise. Below, you’ll see where each platform is strong, where people are frustrated, over the last six months and how to choose the right fit for your media mix.

Which ad fraud detection platform has the best ratings?

Takeaways

• DoubleVerify, IAS, and MOAT all have solid G2 ratings above 4.0/5, suggesting broadly positive customer experiences on measurement and fraud protection. Source: G2 – DoubleVerify, G2 – Integral Ad Science, G2 – Moat Analytics
• MOAT has the highest average rating (4.6/5) but only 32 reviews, so a few very happy or unhappy customers can swing the score more than for DoubleVerify’s 77-review base.
• IAS has only 10 G2 reviews, so its 4.3/5 rating is directionally useful but not statistically robust; treat it as a qualitative signal, not a definitive benchmark. Source: G2 – Integral Ad Science
• Pixalate has almost no public product reviews; the two Sitejabber reviews are strongly negative about support and management, not measurement accuracy, and are too few to generalize from. Source: Sitejabber – Pixalate
• Industry discussions on Reddit often treat IAS and DoubleVerify as a “duopoly” and a “necessary tax” rather than beloved tools, which aligns with the idea that verification is expected infrastructure more than a wow-factor product. Source: Reddit – IAS goes private thread

How much do ad fraud detection platforms really cost?

Public pricing is rare for enterprise verification, but we can piece together typical patterns from official pricing pages and industry analyses.

What this means in practice

• Pixalate is the only one of the four with clear, self-serve pricing and a genuine free tier, which makes it attractive for smaller developers or ad-supported app teams who want fraud signals via API without a six-figure contract.
• DoubleVerify and IAS both behave like classic enterprise SaaS plus usage: you’re typically paying CPM-based verification fees that add ~3–10% to media costs, often under multi-year contracts or network-level deals.
• For most brands, DV/IAS costs end up as standard “verification” line items in DSPs or IOs; smaller advertisers often inherit the cost through managed-service buys rather than contracting directly.
• MOAT’s enterprise focus and Oracle’s decision to wind down its broader advertising business mean you should treat Moat Analytics as a solution mainly for existing large Oracle or publisher relationships, not something you casually spin up as a new, standalone vendor.

Always double-check current prices with each vendor's calculator or sales team.

What are the key features of each platform?

Pixalate

Core positioning: Fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics with a heavy focus on CTV and mobile app inventory.

Key Features:

• End-to-end fraud stack: pre-bid blocking, post-bid analytics, and a Media Ratings Terminal that scores apps, domains, and sellers to help buyers avoid high-risk supply. Source: Pixalate Ad Fraud Protection
• Broad programmatic coverage, claiming monitoring across 5M+ apps, 80M domains, and 300M+ OTT devices to detect dozens of IVT types across CTV, mobile apps, and web. Source: Pixalate homepage
• MRC-accredited SIVT detection and filtering across desktop, mobile web, mobile in-app, and CTV/OTT, positioning Pixalate as a certified vendor for sophisticated invalid traffic. Source: Pixalate Ad Fraud Protection
• Self-service Ad Trust & Safety API suite with SDKs for mobile and CTV, providing fraud scoring of users, devices, and traffic patterns; includes freemium access for developers. Source: Pixalate Ad Trust & Safety API blog
• Fraud prevention lists, domain/seller ratings, and app trust indexes that can be used for whitelisting/blacklisting and supply path optimization. Source: Pixalate Ad Fraud Detection

Best For:

• CTV and mobile app publishers or SSPs who want device- and app-level fraud intelligence and ratings.
• Developers who want to embed fraud checks directly into apps or backends via APIs with clear pricing.
• Buyers who care about third-party CTV/mobile benchmarks and app store–level fraud research.

DoubleVerify

Core positioning: AI-driven media effectiveness platform that combines fraud detection, brand safety, and viewability across open web, CTV, social, and audio.

Key Features:

• DV Fraud Lab that hunts and mitigates large-scale schemes like ViperBot, BeatSting (audio), and CycloneBot in CTV and audio, often claiming to save unprotected advertisers millions per month. Source: DV – ViperBot press release, DV – BeatSting release, DV – CycloneBot
• DV Authentic Ad® metric that requires an impression to be viewable, fraud-free, correctly geo-targeted, and brand-suitable, increasingly used across major platforms (e.g., Reddit). Source: DV – Reddit media quality announcement
• Strong CTV focus, including partnerships with Roku to reduce falsified CTV device traffic and authenticate device-level impressions using Roku’s Advertising Watermark. Source: TVTechnology – Roku & DoubleVerify
• Pre-bid avoidance segments in major DSPs, letting advertisers filter out suspected IVT and unsafe inventory before bidding, with documented case studies showing six-figure savings. Source: DV – Mondelez pre-bid avoidance case study
• Cross-platform coverage for programmatic, walled gardens, social, CTV, and emerging environments (e.g., Reddit, audio), with unified reporting in the Pinnacle dashboard. Source: Grapeseed – DoubleVerify review guide

Best For:

• Large brands and agencies with heavy CTV, social, and cross-channel spend who want a single verification vendor.
• Advertisers that value highly publicized fraud research and want a partner invested in surfacing new schemes.
• Platforms and publishers seeking third-party validation of inventory quality and brand safety (e.g., Reddit partnership).

IAS (Integral Ad Science)

Core positioning: Global media measurement and optimization platform that wants to be the “benchmark for trust and transparency” in digital media quality.

Key Features:

• Multi-channel ad fraud detection for open web, CTV, mobile in-app, and social, using machine learning and large-scale event analysis to distinguish bots from humans. Source: IAS Ad Fraud Solutions
• MRC accreditation for Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) detection/filtration across desktop, mobile web, mobile app, and CTV – IAS was first to receive this accreditation for CTV. Source: IAS Ad Fraud Solutions
• TAG Platinum status (Certified Against Fraud, Certified for Transparency, Brand Safety Certified), signaling adherence to industry standards for anti-fraud and transparency. Source: IAS Ad Fraud Solutions
• AI-driven “Total Media Quality” product that combines brand safety/suitability, viewability, and IVT measurement across environments, including a deep integration with Reddit. Source: , IAS – Total Media Quality on Reddit
• Multi-tiered approach (pre-bid and post-bid) to ad fraud, with DSP-integrated pre-bid avoidance segments and ongoing Threat Lab research on new forms of IVT.

Best For:

• Enterprise advertisers and agencies who want a single vendor for brand safety, fraud, and viewability across display, video, CTV, and social.
• Teams who value strong accreditations and standardized metrics to satisfy brand and compliance stakeholders.
• Buyers already embedded in IAS’s ecosystem (e.g., using IAS with major DSPs or Reddit) who want AI-driven classification and consistent reporting.

MOAT (Moat Analytics by Oracle)

Core positioning: Attention and viewability analytics with invalid traffic filtration, designed for large brands, platforms, and publishers.

Key Features:

• MRC-accredited for Sophisticated Invalid Traffic filtration and detection in mobile apps as well as for desktop and mobile web, building on earlier viewability accreditations. Source: Oracle – Moat MRC SIVT accreditation
• Deep focus on attention and viewability, helping advertisers measure in-view time, completion, and interaction to optimize campaigns beyond simple impression counts. Source: Marketing Dive – Moat funding for attention metric
• Integrations with CTV and OTT environments (e.g., Samsung Ads), giving advertisers viewability and IVT metrics on connected TV inventory. Source: Oracle – Samsung Ads Moat integration
• Widely adopted by platforms like Spotify, Taboola, InMobi, and in-game networks to prove viewability and low IVT to advertisers. Source: Oracle – Spotify case study, Taboola–Moat integration
• Used to power novel pricing models where advertisers only pay for impressions that meet strict Moat-verified viewability thresholds (e.g., Teads and VDX.tv). Source: , VDX.tv & Moat CPV model

Best For:

• Large advertisers and platforms already in Oracle’s ecosystem who want attention and viewability analytics plus IVT validation.
• Publishers and ad networks needing third-party validation to prove low IVT and high viewability (e.g., in-game, CTV).
• Teams comfortable with an enterprise, Oracle-style engagement rather than self-serve SaaS.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of each platform?

Pixalate

Strengths:

• Strong specialization in CTV and mobile app fraud, with frequent benchmark reports showing high CTV IVT rates and differentiated analysis by device and app store. Source: Pixalate Q2 2022 IVT Benchmarks
• MRC accreditation for SIVT across desktop, mobile web, in-app, and CTV gives credibility to its fraud detection metrics. Source: Pixalate Ad Fraud Protection
• Developer-friendly self-service APIs with a real free tier and relatively low entry-level pricing, which is rare among verification vendors and helpful for smaller publishers. Source: Pixalate developer pricing, Pixalate Fraud API blog
• Media Ratings and trust indexes give buyers and SSPs a way to rank and score inventory sources for supply path optimization. Source: Pixalate Media Ratings Overview

Weaknesses:

• Very little independent customer-review data; the two Sitejabber reviews are both 1-star and complain about poor prioritization and condescending responses from staff, suggesting customer relationship issues for at least some clients. Source: Sitejabber – Pixalate
• Multiple anonymous employee reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed describe management as “toxic,” “controlling,” and disorganized, with high turnover and stressful culture, which may correlate with inconsistent customer experience. Source: Glassdoor – Pixalate reviews, Indeed – Pixalate reviews
• A widely upvoted r/adops thread accuses Pixalate of “pay to play” rankings and skewed IVT data that differ sharply from other vendors, which—while anecdotal—has clearly hurt trust among some ad-ops professionals. Source: Reddit – “Pixalate finally directly called out on their BS”
• Smaller scale and revenue relative to DV and IAS (e.g., ~$4.4M revenue estimated in 2024 vs. hundreds of millions for the duopoly) may limit resources for global support and R&D. Source: Latka – Pixalate revenue, IAS revenue – Wikipedia, DoubleVerify earnings coverage

DoubleVerify

Strengths:

• Considered one of two dominant verification players alongside IAS, with broad adoption across large brands, agencies, CTV platforms, and social environments. Source: Reddit – IAS goes private thread
• Demonstrated ability to uncover and mitigate complex fraud schemes like CycloneBot in CTV and BeatSting in audio, often quantifying potential savings for unprotected advertisers. Source: DV – CycloneBot, DV – BeatSting release
• Strong platform partnerships (e.g., Reddit, Roku) that use DV’s metrics as an independent quality layer, with reported drops in falsified CTV impressions in the Roku ecosystem. Source: BusinessWire – Reddit selects DV, TVTechnology – Roku & DV
• Reviewers and independent guides tend to find DV’s Pinnacle UI relatively easy to use once configured, with straightforward toggles for brand safety and fraud settings. Source: Grapeseed – DoubleVerify review guide, G2 – DoubleVerify

Weaknesses:

• Pricing is clearly enterprise-focused; review guides cite $0.05–$0.10 CPM for full coverage and six-figure annual contracts, which smaller advertisers may see as prohibitive. Source: Grapeseed – DoubleVerify review guide, DCFModeling – DoubleVerify marketing mix, AIMadTech – DoubleVerify profile
• Some users report inconsistent results vs. IAS (e.g., one Redditor described DV showing nearly 100% IVT while IAS showed <1% for the same traffic), which can lead to lost business when buyers standardize on one vendor. Source: Reddit – “DoubleVerify completely contradicts IAS Reports”
• A Sitejabber page (2 reviews, 2.0/5) complains about “zero follow through” and non-responsive sales, though the data is very limited and somewhat dated. Source: Sitejabber – DoubleVerify
• DV has faced scrutiny including an Adalytics report and a U.S. Senate inquiry over alleged failures in brand safety, which may concern risk-averse brands, even though the company continues to grow revenue. Source: Axios – DV to acquire Rockerbox; scrutiny note, TipRanks – DV Q2 2025 earnings

IAS (Integral Ad Science)

Strengths:

• High overall satisfaction on G2 (4.3/5 from 10 reviews), with several reviewers praising simple UI and effective management of brand safety, invalid traffic, and ongoing weekly check-ins. Source: G2 – IAS
• Robust accreditations (MRC SIVT detection across environments; TAG Platinum) and strong branding around being the “global benchmark for trust and transparency,” which resonates with large brands and holding companies. Source: IAS Ad Fraud Solutions
• AI-driven Total Media Quality framework spanning brand safety, viewability, and IVT, now extended deeply into Reddit inventory for end-to-end measurement and AI-based content classification. Source: IAS – Reddit TMQ expansion
• Frequently cited as one half of the verification “duopoly” with DoubleVerify, which means strong ecosystem support and wide availability in DSPs and SSPs. Source: Reddit – IAS goes private thread, Reuters – Novacap buys IAS

Weaknesses:

• Some G2 reviewers complain about “tech flaws” where pre-bid filters still allow high IVT fail rates post-bid, and about reporting complexity or lack of accountability when issues arise. Source: G2 – IAS reviews
• Pricing is perceived as high; one independent guide calls IAS “$$$,” with costs often equating to 3–10% of media spend, and recent industry coverage notes price hikes that concern some buyers. Source: Grapeseed – IAS review guide, Adweek – IAS price increases (paywalled)
• Programmatic practitioners on Reddit increasingly see IAS/DV as a necessary tax with limited differentiation and little remaining growth room, which may reflect some commoditization of basic verification. Source: Reddit – IAS goes private thread
• The Novacap acquisition means IAS will go private; while that doesn’t directly affect service quality, M&A transitions can temporarily distract leadership and product teams. Source: Reuters – Novacap buys IAS

MOAT (Moat Analytics by Oracle)

Strengths:

• Highest G2 rating among the four (4.6/5 from 32 reviews), with users consistently praising the UI, depth of metrics, and ability to see creative-level interactions and heatmaps. Source: G2 – Moat Analytics
• Recognized leader in viewability and attention measurement, with early MRC accreditations for mobile viewability and later for SIVT filtration in mobile apps. Source: , Oracle – Moat MRC SIVT accreditation
• Proven results in case studies (e.g., Digital Remedy, InMobi, Frameplay, Spotify) that show lower IVT, higher viewability, and strong performance vs. benchmarks, which boosts trust among brands. Source: , , Oracle – Spotify, Frameplay–Moat IVT results
• Often integrated directly into publisher and ad network offerings, which means advertisers can get Moat-based guarantees (e.g., only paying for 100% viewable impressions) without integrating Moat themselves. Source: , VDX.tv & Moat

Weaknesses:

• G2 reviewers note that data exports can be clunky, metrics can be confusing for new users, and reporting is not real-time (often ~24-hour delay), which can be a challenge for short flights. Source: G2 – Moat Analytics
• Oracle’s decision to shutter its advertising division, including the free Moat Ads search, raises questions about the long-term roadmap and investment in Moat Analytics, even as enterprise contracts continue. Source: Bestever – Moat Ads discontinued, Marketing Brew – Oracle divesting advertising business
• Community sentiment on Reddit has become negative toward Oracle’s shutdown of free tools and perceived lack of transparency, with some users explicitly saying “Fuck Oracle” over the loss of Moat creative search. Source: Reddit – “Moat Ad Search” thread
• Designed for large companies and typically sold via enterprise deals, making it a poor fit for SMB advertisers who want self-serve fraud tools.

How do these platforms position themselves?

Pixalate markets itself as a “fraud protection, privacy, and compliance analytics platform” for CTV and mobile, emphasizing its MRC accreditations and breadth of device and app coverage across 5M+ apps, 80M domains, and 300M+ OTT devices. It leans heavily on fraud benchmarks, trust indexes, and media ratings that promise “the industry’s only complete coverage platform.” Source: Pixalate homepage, Pixalate Ad Fraud Protection

DoubleVerify positions itself as the “industry’s leading media effectiveness platform” powered by AI, with the DV Authentic Ad® as a kind of quality currency for impressions across CTV, social, and open web. Its messaging is about independence, fraud lab research, and partnerships with major platforms like Reddit and Roku to deliver safer, more effective media at scale. Source: DV – Reddit media quality announcement, DV – CycloneBot release

IAS calls itself a “leading global media measurement and optimization platform,” with a mission to be the global benchmark for trust and transparency in digital media quality. Its marketing stresses AI-powered classification, Total Media Quality, deep fraud protection, and TAG/MRC credentials, plus high-profile platform partnerships such as Reddit. Source: IAS Ad Fraud Solutions, IAS – Reddit TMQ, IAS company overview

MOAT (Moat Analytics) portrays itself as a trusted, cross-platform measurement solution focused on attention, viewability, and invalid traffic, often framed as helping advertisers “measure and drive attention across trillions of impressions” and verify that ads are seen by real people in safe contexts. Oracle’s materials heavily highlight Moat’s MRC accreditations and use by premium publishers and platforms. Source: Oracle – Moat MRC accreditation

Which platform should you choose?

Choose Pixalate If:

1. You’re a CTV or mobile app publisher/dev shop that needs fraud scoring at the app or device level and wants to integrate via API. The self-service Fraud API and Enrichment APIs let you embed IVT checks directly into your stack without going through a big enterprise sales cycle.
2. You’re price-sensitive or early-stage and want to start with a free or low-cost fraud solution. The free tier and ~$99+ entry-level plans are far more approachable than typical DV/IAS six-figure contracts.
3. You want CTV and mobile-specific fraud benchmarks and ratings to support conversations with exchanges and advertisers. Pixalate’s frequent CTV and app IVT benchmark reports and trust indexes are useful ammo for negotiations.
4. You can tolerate ecosystem skepticism and are comfortable validating outputs against your own log-level data. Given the critical Reddit threads and limited public customer reviews, you should plan to cross-check Pixalate results against at least one other source for major decisions.

Choose DoubleVerify If:

1. You’re a large brand or agency with significant CTV and cross-channel spend who wants a single, well-recognized verification partner. DV is widely deployed and supported in DSPs, SSPs, and major platforms like Reddit and Roku.
2. You want a vendor that actively hunts emerging fraud schemes and can show credible “saves” for your stakeholders. DV’s Fraud Lab track record with ViperBot, BeatSting, and CycloneBot is a strong selling point when you need to justify verification costs.
3. You care about unified quality metrics like DV Authentic Ad® that bundle fraud, viewability, geo, and brand safety into a single KPI. This can simplify reporting to non-technical stakeholders.
4. You’re willing to pay mid-to-high CPM fees (e.g., ~$0.05–$0.10) and/or six-figure annual contracts in exchange for global coverage and strong integrations. DV is rarely the cheapest option, but it’s rarely dismissed on capabilities.
5. You have internal resources to reconcile occasional discrepancies with other vendors (e.g., IAS) and to defend DV’s outputs if partners challenge them. Reddit discussions show that conflicting IVT numbers across vendors can have real commercial consequences.

Choose IAS If:

1. You want a verification partner with strong accreditation and “safe choice” positioning for enterprise stakeholders and regulators. MRC SIVT accreditation across channels and TAG Platinum status make IAS easy to justify to risk-averse leadership.
2. You rely heavily on social + CTV + open web and want a single AI-driven framework (Total Media Quality) for brand safety, viewability, and fraud. IAS’s TMQ plus Reddit integrations are tailored for this.
3. You value service and relationship depth. G2 reviews call out regular wrap-ups and weekly meetings where IAS flags IVT and brand safety issues by partner, which can be critical for large, complex accounts.
4. You’re comfortable treating verification as a standard overhead line item adding a few percent to media costs. Independent analysis and practitioner guides put IAS costs at ~3–10% of spend via CPM-based pricing.
5. You want to hedge against future platform shifts but stay within the DV/IAS duopoly. Even as IAS goes private, it remains one of two default verification vendors almost every major DSP and SSP supports.

Choose MOAT (Moat Analytics) If:

1. You’re a large advertiser or platform already in Oracle’s ecosystem and want deep attention and viewability analytics plus IVT validation. Moat is optimized for large-scale campaigns and premium publishers.
2. You care more about attention and viewability as performance proxies than about owning your own standalone fraud tool. Moat’s biggest differentiator is analytics depth on creative and attention.
3. You’re buying from publishers or networks that already embed Moat and offer viewability-backed pricing models. In those cases, you effectively get Moat’s validation “for free” from a vendor perspective.
4. You can live with Oracle’s strategic uncertainty in advertising. If you’re on a 1–2 year horizon and primarily using Moat through publisher integrations, the long-term roadmap matters less than near-term contract terms and SLAs.
5. You have other vendors covering pre-bid fraud blocking and only need Moat as a third-party measurement and attention layer. Moat shines as a measurement validator but isn’t typically the only fraud solution in a stack.

Sources & links

Company Websites

• Pixalate – Official Site
• DoubleVerify – Official Site
• Integral Ad Science – Official Site
• Moat (Oracle Advertising) – Overview

Pricing Pages

• Pixalate – Developer Pricing
• Pixalate – Fraud API Pricing Update
• Grapeseed Media – DoubleVerify Review Guide (pricing commentary)
• Grapeseed Media – IAS Review Guide (pricing commentary)
• DCFModeling – DoubleVerify Marketing Mix
• DCFModeling – IAS Marketing Mix

Documentation & Product Overviews

• Pixalate – Ad Fraud Protection Solution

• Pixalate – Ad Fraud Detection

• Pixalate – Ad Fraud Prevention

• IAS – Ad Fraud Solutions

• DoubleVerify – CycloneBot CTV Fraud Scheme

• DoubleVerify – ViperBot Fraud Scheme

• DoubleVerify – BeatSting Audio Fraud Scheme

• Oracle – Moat MRC SIVT Accreditation

G2 Review Pages

• G2 – DoubleVerify
• G2 – Integral Ad Science
• G2 – Moat Analytics

Reddit Discussions

• r/adops – “Pixalate finally directly called out on their BS”
• r/programmatic – “IAS goes private. Scope3: ‘Yeah, Because of Us.’”
• r/programmatic – “IAS or Doubleverify”
• r/adops – “DoubleVerify completely contradicts IAS Reports”
• r/adops – “Doubleverify & IAS cause issues when running together??”
• r/advertising – “Moat Ad Search”

Additional Resources

• Pixalate – Q2 2022 Invalid Traffic Benchmarks Report
• TVTechnology – Roku & DoubleVerify Report Drop in Falsified CTV Impressions
• Reuters – Novacap to Acquire Integral Ad Science
• Bestever.ai – “Where Did Moat Ads Go? 4 Best Alternatives in 2025”