Customers expect a delightful experience on Alexa, and it is our top priority to maintain that experience. Companies, designers, and developers are paramount to creating that unique and compelling voice experience, and we encourage continued innovation.

With that in mind, today we are clarifying our policy on advertising in Alexa skills. Our goal is to maintain the customer experience that Alexa users have come to expect while providing better guidelines for developers looking to innovate. The intention of these new updates is to make it clearer what’s acceptable while ensuring our developers have the details they need to build skills that will pass certification.

Advertising in Alexa Skills

To ensure a delightful experience for customers and provide clear guidance to developers, our new policy is as follows:

Your skill will be rejected if it includes or otherwise surfaces advertising or promotional messaging. There are specific exceptions we will allow:  

• Streaming music, streaming radio, podcast, and flash briefing skills may include audio advertisements as long as (1) the advertisements do not use Alexa’s voice or a similar voice, refer to Alexa, or imitate Alexa interactions, and (2) the skill does not include more or materially different advertising than is included when the same or similar content is made available outside of Alexa.

• Skills that allow customers to order products or services (e.g. order a pizza) may include audio messaging promoting those products or services.

• Skills may include audio messaging informing customers of promotional offers or deals in response to specific requests from end users (e.g., “Alexa, ask [skill name] what deals are available today”).

• Skills that are specifically designed to promote a product or service (e.g., a car wash skill intended to promote that business) may include audio messaging promoting that product or service.

This policy is subject to change over time. You can always read the latest advertising policy in full here.

Developer Success with Alexa

We realize that skill builders invest time and resources to build engaging skills for Alexa. We have two programs that help developers reduce costs and earn a return on their investment. First, we offer a program that makes it free for Alexa developers to build and host most Alexa skills using AWS. In addition, on Monday, we began rewarding our game developers for their skills in the US, the UK, and Germany. Developers of top-performing game skills can earn money for their games based on customer usage. We will continue to explore ways for developers to monetize in the future while maintaining the best possible experience for our customers. Learn more here.

We Value Your Feedback

Voice User Interface (VUI) design is an exciting field, and developers like you have already created more than 12,000 skills with the Alexa Skills Kit. As we learn more about this burgeoning space and explore the realm of possibilities, we will update our processes and requirements. I'll share news and updates as they happen, aiming to be responsive, consistent, and transparent along the way. We’d love your feedback, so please send us your thoughts on Alexa certification anytime using our contact form.