Not sure what you are asking; returns are based on your hashrate, the difficulty to solve each block and whether or not a block has been found and matured. Small pools that don't find blocks very often tend to have very erratic payouts, but if you mine there long enough - assuming blocks are found - then you will make the same as a larger pool finding blocks more often; the difference is that the larger pool will pay out smaller amounts more frequently.

That said, few people want to wait more than a few hours to see if their pending balance goes up on a pool so smaller pools tend to stay small unless they can build a certain amount of momentum.

Altminer, however, is not a small pool. Neither is the official TZC pool, though - it has about half the total network hashrate.