inDrive Bets on Advertising to Keep Rides Affordable in South Africa

When most ride-hailing companies need more money, they typically reach for the same lever, raise prices or take a bigger cut from drivers. inDrive is trying something different.

The mobility platform has rolled out an advertising system within its app across South Africa, marking a deliberate shift in how it funds operations. Rather than squeezing more from each trip, the company is opening up screen real estate to brands, betting that ad revenue can subsidise the core service without making it more expensive for anyone actually using it.

Why Advertising Makes Sense Now

South Africa presents a particular challenge for ride-hailing economics. Transport costs already strain household budgets, and drivers are acutely sensitive to commission structures that cut into their earnings. In this environment, traditional growth strategies like higher fares and larger platform fees quickly hit resistance.

South Africa is a price-conscious market, and affordability is central to how people choose mobility services, says Ashif Black, inDrive's Country Representative for the region. The advertising platform, he explains, offers a path to sustainable growth that doesn't require passing costs down the chain to drivers or passengers.

The logic is straightforward: capture user attention at moments when they're already waiting after booking a ride, while their driver approaches, and during the journey itself and monetise those moments through brand partnerships. The revenue generated helps cover operational expenses and fund expansion without touching fare structures or commission rates.

How the Platform Actually Works

inDrive Ads operates through animated banner formats positioned at what the company calls natural transition points within the app. These aren't intrusive pop-ups or video interruptions. They appear during downtime, the seconds after you've requested a ride, the minutes spent waiting for pickup, and the duration of the trip when you're not actively interacting with navigation or payment functions.

"These are banner-style in-app ads, shown during low-friction moments such as waiting for a driver or during a trip," Black notes. Early brand partners include retail companies, e-commerce platforms, and financial services providers categories that have shown strong engagement in other markets where inDrive has already deployed the system.

The platform includes measurement infrastructure that lets advertisers track campaign reach and performance, a necessary feature for attracting serious marketing budgets. For brands, the value proposition centres on access to a mobile-first audience during moments of active travel planning and execution contexts that typically signal higher purchase intent than passive browsing.

The Broader Context: Profitability Pressures Across Ride-Hailing

inDrive's move reflects wider tensions in the ride-hailing industry globally. Most major platforms are still working toward consistent profitability, caught between keeping riders price-sensitive enough to choose them over alternatives and keeping drivers compensated well enough to stay on the platform.

Advertising revenue offers a high-margin alternative to per-ride commissions. It's not a new idea, other platforms have experimented with in-app ads, but inDrive's implementation appears more systematic, with active deployment across more than 20 countries and campaigns already showing traction in markets outside South Africa.

In some regions, financial institutions have used the platform to drive measurable customer acquisition, including loan applications and credit card sign-ups. That kind of conversion data matters because it demonstrates the ads can generate tangible business outcomes, not just brand awareness.

Read More: inDrive Rolls Out In-App Ads in Nigeria as It Chases New Revenue Streams

Social Impact Carve-Out

Notably, inDrive has reserved a portion of its advertising inventory for nonprofit organisations, community groups, and social programmes in South Africa. These entities will be able to reach large audiences at reduced or zero cost, a feature that aligns with the company's stated mission around social equity and economic access.

Fairness and access are core to our model, says Andries Smit, Chief Growth Business Officer. inDrive Ads strengthens our SuperApp by giving brands and communities a new way to reach people, while reinforcing our commitment to those who depend on our platform for mobility and income.

This is more than corporate social responsibility window dressing. In markets where inDrive operates, building trust with local communities often determines whether the platform gains traction or faces resistance. Offering free or subsidised ad space to community organisations creates tangible goodwill.

What This Means for South Africa's Mobility Landscape

The success of inDrive Ads in South Africa will likely hinge on whether the company can maintain its promise: generating enough ad revenue to meaningfully support operations without degrading the user experience through excessive or poorly timed ad placements.

If it works, the model could provide a blueprint for other markets where affordability remains the deciding factor in platform adoption. If the ads become intrusive or if they don't generate sufficient revenue to offset the need for fare increases down the line, the experiment risks undermining user trust.

With more than 8 billion transactions facilitated globally and operations spanning 48 countries, inDrive is expanding well beyond ride-hailing into intercity travel, delivery services, financial products, and groceries. Each vertical presents similar questions about unit economics and sustainable growth.

For now, South Africa serves as a testing ground for whether advertising can genuinely function as a third revenue stream, one that doesn't require extracting more value from drivers or riders but instead monetises the attention and intent already present within the platform's daily use.