State of Subscription Apps 2024 – RevenueCat

Report preview

Methodology & data

Since RevenueCat was founded in 2017, we’ve tracked over $6 billion in subscription app revenue across the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

The 30,000 apps with RevenueCat’s in-app subscription SDKs and integrations span everything from niche indie apps to several of the top 100 subscription apps.

The benchmark data in this report is from all of those apps, with steps taken to ensure anonymity.

Want to see the previous year’s data? Find the State of Subscription Apps 2023 report here.

Key insights

Introduction

Pricing & packaging

Price points

Price points year-on-year remain mostly stable

• Most common price points for subscription plans have remained unchanged from the previous year, with 1-week at $4.99, 1-month at $9.99, and 3-month and 1-year at $29.99+
• Identical pricing for 3-month and 1-year plans at $29.99 suggests a strategic push towards longer-term commitments, offering substantial value for annual subscriptions at a price point competitive with shorter-term plans+
• While the most common price for a monthly subscription remained the same at $10, the average price for a monthly subscription has increased significantly with 14% from $7.05 to $8.01, while weekly grew a little under 2% to $5.55, and yearly average actually decreased a little over 1% from $32.94 to $32.53.

Price points, period over period

There are clear pricing preferences per category emerging

• Many categories have standardized on $4.99 per week, $9.99 per month, and $29.99 for an annual subscription.
• Notable exceptions include education, where a preference for the $59.99 / y price point has lead to a very high average price for yearly subscriptions.
• Business and Shopping, both of which also sport high annual subscription averages, do so by seeing several outliers with a very high annual price (the most common price points in both categories for annual is still $29.99).

Price points, by category

Plan durations

Different categories adopt different subscription duration strategies

• Users showed a strong preference for 1-year plans in Health & Fitness and Education apps, indicating a trend towards long-term goals.
• Nearly 70% of Gaming subscriptions were for 1-week plans, highlighting short-term user engagement in this category.
• Media & Entertainment apps show a balanced distribution between 1-month and 1-year plans, indicating varied user preferences in this category.
• Other app categories — like Photo & Video, Productivity, and Social & Lifestyle — show diverse subscription patterns, with both monthly and annual plans being popular among users.

Plan durations, by category

Trial strategy

Trial strategies across apps are diverse

• Nearly half of apps (47.84%) sometimes offer trials, while 28.81% don’t offer trials at all, and 23.34% consistently provide trials.
• This is a significant departure from last year’s report, where almost 40% of apps had no trial in place.
• Similarly, the share of apps that always offered a trial decreased significantly from over 30% last year to a little over 23% for this edition of the report.
• The move towards a mixed trial strategy might hint at an increased willingness to segment an app’s audience and offer varying ways of evaluating and purchasing.

Trial strategy

Shorter trial periods are the norm

• 5 to 9 days is increasing its lead as the default trial period
• Even though longer trials are still relatively uncommon, the absolute number of 17-32 day trials increased by ~50%
• Much of that growth seems to stem from developers dropping a 2-week trial (10-16 days) in favour of full month
• Even though much of the data suggests that slightly longer trials convert somewhat better, developers seem to prioritise a more rapid conversion, which – in turn – helps keep CAC payback short

Trial durations, year-on-year

Media & Entertainment and Shopping apps offer longer trials

• Media & Entertainment (mainly streaming) apps have relatively long trial periods, with some developers opting for 30-day trials.
• When games offer subscription trials, they tend to be very short (over 90% are shorter than 4 days).
• Shopping apps provide longer-than-average trials, possibly as a means of augmenting commerce revenue — discounts and free shipping for trial subscribers can lead to larger cart sizes and higher purchase revenue, an upside for the developer even without collecting payment for a subscription.

Trial durations per category

Monetization strategies

For most categories, subscription-only is the dominant model

• Most apps in the Business, Education, Health & Fitness, and Utilities categories use a subscription-only model.
• Gaming shows a blend of the subscription and consumable models, with 22.74% of apps incorporating both.
• Media & Entertainment, Photo & Video, and Social & Lifestyle also use mixed monetization strategies, though to a lesser extent than Gaming.

Monetization strategies, by category

With exceptions, offer usage is relatively rare

• Around 9% of apps across all categories use offers, with a slightly higher usage in the App Store (9.51%) than in Google Play (8.14%)
• The Health & Fitness category leads in offer usage, exceeding 15% in both stores. Based on other behaviours in the category, this might be indicative of the relatively mature monetization tactics deployed by Health and Fitness apps
• Gaming has the lowest adoption of offers, at approximately 3.5%

Offers – by category

Intro offers are popular across stores

• The distribution of offer types between the App Store and Google Play reveals distinct preferences.
• Introductory offers are more prevalent in Google Play (66.6%) than in the App Store (44.1%)
• Conversely, offer codes are used more in the App Store (56.6%) than in Google Play (38.8%)
• Promotional offers, which are exclusive to iOS, are used by 23.9% of App Store apps employing offers, highlighting a unique promotional strategy not available in Google Play

Offer types, by store

Conversion

Trial start rates

Some app categories excel at converting installs to trials, while others lag behind

• Trial start rates vary notably across app categories. Health & Fitness and Business lead with median rates of 6.7% and 6.9%, respectively, compared to lower rates in Gaming (2.9%) and Media & Entertainment (3.9%)
• The Business and Health & Fitness categories excel, with top performers showing conversion rates up to 13.3% and 13.5%
• These variances could stem from differing monetization models and user familiarity with subscriptions. High-value app categories like Business and Health & Fitness tend to have users who are more motivated to pay for subscriptions

Trial start rate, by category

Most trial starts occur within the first 24 hours

• Most users start trials within 24 hours of downloading an app, with Utilities (86.0%) and Business (85.1%) leading in immediate starts
• In contrast, Shopping sees only 38.5% starting trials on day one, with 29.0% after 30 days or later. This is likely a consequence of Shopping’s reliance on ecommerce as primary monetisation method, and a reduced focus on immediate conversion to subscriber
• Other categories with relatively late trial starts tend to be categories that – traditionally – sport relatively strong free offerings, like Social & Lifestyle

Trial start rate, time to start

Trial conversion rates

Average trial conversion performance dropped by ~3% year on year

• This year’s trial conversion rate dropped to 37.3% (down from 40.5% last year), hinting at changes in user behavior or trial impact
• Shorter trials (<=4 days) yield a 31.2% conversion rate, while longer trials reach up to 44.9%. App Store trials surpass Play Store trials, averaging 39.0% compared to 28.5%
• The decrease in trial conversion rate may relate to market saturation and the rise in subscription offers. Platform disparities likely reflect different user demographics and spending patterns

Trial conversion rate, segmented

Which categories best convert trial users into subscribers?

• Trial conversion rates vary across app categories. Travel, Shopping, and Health & Fitness excel with conversion rates of 54.3%, 45.4%, and 44.5% respectively, while Photo & Video and Gaming clearly underperform with 26.2% and 30.8%
• Notably high upper quartile rates in Media & Entertainment (60.3%), Travel (66.9%), and Health & Fitness (58.8%) indicate top-performers are particularly good at converting trial users into subscribers
• Differences likely stem from how users value each category. Higher conversions in Shopping and Travel suggests strong intent, whereas lower rates in Gaming and Photo & Video may reflect more casual engagement

Trial conversion rate, by category

Download-to-paid rates

What markets offer the best download to paid potential?

• Download-to-paid conversion rates vary by region. North America leads, especially in Business (9.8%) and Health & Fitness (9.4%)
• EMEA generally shows lower rates, but Business (4.5%) and Health & Fitness (4.4%) outperform
• On average, both Japan and South Korea show better download to paid conversion then EMEA, with both converting a little over 2% of download, while Europe falls short of 1.5%
• The best performing combination of market and category is Education in South Korea, converting an exceptional 10.7% of downloads into new, paying subscribers, which is a significant multiple compared to the 1.7% conversion rate across all categories and regions

Download to paid, segmented

Monetization

Realized LTV

Realized LTV increased significantly last year, but what’s up with Apple Search Ads?

• Over the last year, both 14-day and 60-day Realized Lifetime Value (RLTV) grew significantly, with blended D14 RLTV across stores growing from $0.06 to $0.08, while D60 grew from $0.08 to $0.12.
• Tho RLTV from traffic driven by Apple Search Ads (ASA) fell, it still yields about 10x revenue compared to an average user, with a strong D14 number seemingly correlating to fast conversion.
• However, ASA isn’t a magic bullet — there’s a clear cap on profitable user acquisition, making funnel performance tracking essential.

14- and 60-Day realized LTV, year over year

North America leads in RLTV, but there are some intriguing opportunities

• North American 14-day RLTV is 4x the global average, at $0.35 versus $0.08.
• When taking ASA sourced traffic out of account, US Google Play downloads outperform App Store downloads from other regions in terms of RLTV.
• Both Japan and South Korea seem to monetize Play downloads better, which – due to Samsung’s local dominance – was expected in South Korea, but is surprising in Japan.
• On average (when combining all platforms and sources), Japan and South Korea both outperform EMEA in terms of revenue per download.

14 and 60 day realized LTV, by region

Health & Fitness wins by a landslide in RLTV, followed by Business

• Health & Fitness apps average $0.56 RLTV at 14 days and $0.72 at 60 days post-download
• Business stands out as another top-performer — no other category exceeds an average of $0.10 in 14-day RLTV per download
• In both Health & Fitness and Business, we see above average conversion from download to subscriber, and relatively high average prices
• The Social & Lifestyle category, dominated by dating apps, shows the largest proportional D14 to D60 RLTV increase, signaling above-average retention for apps in this category

14 and 60 day realized LTV, by store category

Refund rates

Education and Health & Fitness see above-average refund rates

• Most categories and geographies see roughly the same refund rate, with some notable exceptions
• Japan had 3x lower refund rates than any other region
• South Korea, on the other hand, has significantly higher refund rates than average
• There was low variation between most categories — however, Health & Fitness and Education see above average refund rates, while Travel and Shopping perform best

Refund rate, by geography and category

Retention

Retention rates

Weekly subscriptions have lost two-thirds of subscribers by month 4

• Weekly subscriptions seem to have relatively poor retention rates. Top performers seem to compare poorly against other subscription lengths, with the upper quartile of renewals seeing just over 40% left after three renewals, versus ~52% for monthly subscriptions
• Weekly subscriptions generally aren’t a great fit for products expecting long-term retention, but can work well for a quick return on ad spend or for apps with limited recurring use cases
• Instead of trying to win back subscribers to a weekly subscription, consider offering monthly and annual plans

Weekly subscription retention

Top quartile apps retain almost half of monthly subscribers at 3rd renewal

• Monthly subscriptions have a median first renewal rate over 60%, but retain just 36% of the initial cohort subscribers by the third renewal
• With each subsequent renewal, a customer becomes more and more likely to continue renewing their subscription, causing the drop in retention to flatten out over time
• At the third renewal, top quartile apps retain twice as many subscribers compared to bottom quartile apps
• With a higher potential LTV compared to discounted annual plans, highly retentive monthly subscriptions are the default for consumer subscription leaders like Netflix and Spotify

Monthly subscription retention

Upper quartile app retain 4.5x more customers after the second renewal

• Annual subscriptions have the lowest initial renewal rates, but collecting a year’s worth of subscription revenue up-front will often make up for that
• At the first renewal, top quartile apps retain twice as many subscribers as bottom quartile apps. By the time of the second renewal, that gap widens to 4.5x the number of retained subscribers
• While actual retention can’t be determined until the renewal happens 12 months later, it’s important to keep an eye on cohorted auto-renew status and engagement to get a sense for how retention is tracking throughout the year

Annual subscription retention

Year 1 retention rates dropped meaningfully in 2023

• Monthly subscriptions saw the largest drop in Year 1 retention — a surprising 13.7%. The use of monthly subscriptions slightly increased, from 35.8% of all subscriptions in 2022 to 36.7% in 2023
• Year 1 retention of annual subscriptions dropped the least, at just 8.0%. The use of annual subscriptions decreased slightly, going from 42.4% of all subscriptions in 2022 to 41.4% in 2023
• With new subscription apps launching every day and RevenueCat tracking even more of the market in 2023, the drop in Year 1 retention shouldn’t be interpreted solely as a reflection of consumer sentiment and tighter consumer budgets, though that likely contributed

Average Year 1 retention, 2022 vs 2023

Travel apps have the highest year one retention for annual subscriptions

• Travel apps have the highest Year 1 retention for weekly and annual subscriptions, but show slightly below average performance for monthly subscriptions
• Across the board, weekly subscriptions retain low single digits of subscribers at Year 1, with the exception of the Travel category (at 11%)
• Shopping apps have the highest Year 1 retention for monthly subscriptions at 24%. That’s 4x the 6% Year 1 retention rate of the Social & Lifestyle category
• While these numbers show average retention, each category has outlier apps that perform significantly better than the rest — demonstrating that great apps in every category can excel at retention

Year 1 retention, by category

Japan leads the world in Year 1 retention across all subscription durations

• With a whopping 42% for annual, 26% for monthly, and 10% for weekly subscriptions, Japan leads the world in Year 1 retention
• Consisting of many developing nations, Rest of World has the lowest Year 1 retention rates: 28% for annual, 10% for monthly, and 2% for weekly
• While North America accounts for the majority of revenue for subscription apps, retention is middling at 27% for annual, 15% for monthly, and 4% for weekly
• Marketing your app to Japanese consumers won’t guarantee higher retention rates compared to other geographies. It is, however, the third largest mobile market measured in in-app spend, so might be worth looking into

Year 1 retention, by geography

Renewals

Upper quartile apps in the Business category see a 74% first renewal rate

• The Social & Lifestyle category has the lowest median first renewal rate at just 49%
• The Shopping category is an outlier with a median first renewal rate of 69% and a lower quartile first renewal rate of 52%
• Retaining customers is all about delivering value in excess of the cost of the subscription, so it’s not surprising that the Business and Shopping categories have the highest median first renewal rates
• Even in the lowest performing category (Social & Lifestyle), the upper quartile has a first renewal rate over 63% — demonstrating that great apps in every category can perform well

First renewal rate, by category

Japan leads the world in first renewal rate

• With a median first renewal rate of 62%, Japanese app users retain at meaningfully higher rates than any other region in the world
• Rest of World performs worst on renewal rates, likely due to the number of developing nations included in this category
• With a median first renewal rate of 58%, North America trails just behind Japan, but in the upper quartile, Japan is even further ahead
• Segmenting your retention rate by geography can help uncover highly retentive countries that might warrant additional attention on localization, user acquisition, and country-specific use cases

First renewal rate, by geography

First renewal rates dropped in 2023, across all subscription durations

• Annual subscriptions saw the biggest year-over-year drop in first renewal rates, with a drop of 13% for the median app. From 40.4% in 2022 to 35.3% in 2023.
• Monthly subscriptions performed best, with “only” a 3% drop in median first renewal rates.
• These data may reflect tightening purse strings for subscription app consumers, subscription app fatigue, the app industry’s push toward annual subscriptions, and/or a trend toward displaying paywalls sooner and more frequently — which leads to lower-intent users.

First renewal, 2023 vs 2022

Weekly subscriptions see mixed performance, in terms of active renewals

• In every category, annual renewals by inactive subscribers are rare, leading to an average active renewal rate across categories of 96%+.
• Even though sometimes looked at as ‘set and forget’ subscriptions, several categories see high rates of active renewals for weekly subscriptions, including Shopping and Social & Lifestyle.
• Monthly subscription performance varies less than weekly, but still sees a 1.7x difference in active renewal rate between Shopping (77.1%) and Gaming (44.6%).

Churn & reactivation

Billing errors account for over 23% of churn on the App Store

• Involuntary churn is a big deal for all subscription businesses, and despite Apple’s work to reduce involuntary churn, it still accounts for over 23% of churn on the App Store.
• While the “price increase” reason is low in aggregate, we did not look a churn from price increases independently. Across all subscription expirations, it accounts for just 0.1%, but that will be meaningfully higher for individual apps that raised prices.
• These numbers do not include Play Store subscriptions. We hope to publish those numbers in a future blog post and/or report.

App store subscription expiration reasons

Monthly subscriptions have the highest reactivation rate

• With user acquisition costs going up and Year 1 retention dropping, it’s good to see that reactivation is an option.
• The lower reactivation rate for annual subscriptions might be a consequence of churners making a very well informed decision, as they’ve spent a lot of time with the product.
• Improving reactivation rates is similar to preventing churn in the first place: segment users to understand why they disengaged, offer discounts for re-subscribing, remind churned users what they’re missing, and make sure they understand the full value of the subscription.

Twelve month reactivation rate, by plan duration

Growth rate

Revenue hit rates

Reaching $1k in monthly revenue is hard — but growth from there is easier

• On average, only ~17% of apps reach $1k monthly revenue, but of those that do, 59% of them reach $2.5k, and then 60% of those reach $5k.
• Photo & Video and Health & Fitness apps both see an above average share hit the $1,000 and $2,500 monthly revenue milestones, but they don’t seem to produce a larger share of breakout ($25k+) successes.
• Social & Lifestyle is more likely to produce a $25k+ apps than any other category, at 2.3% compared to the average of 1.5% across all categories.

Revenue hit rate, by category

After the first $1,000 in monthly revenue, new milestones come faster

• The median number of days it takes an app to reach $1k in monthly revenue is 65 days, while getting to $5,000 takes a total of 120 days. A trend that holds across most categories.
• Notable exception is Travel, which sees apps reach $1k and $2.5k faster than average, but then slows down to a crawl when scaling to $5k.
• Photo & Video apps get to $1,000 in monthly revenue faster than any other category, which seems to be driven by the explosive growth in AI image apps last year. In addition to the obvious big winners in that particular sub-genre, a large number of indies and small scale startups launched to some initial success

Time to revenue, by category

The top 5% generate 200x the revenue the bottom quartile makes, one year in

• The median monthly revenue an app generates 12 month in is a little under $50 USD
• When segmenting down to the top 10% or even top 5% of performers, revenue numbers increase rapidly, going from $223 (upper quartile), to $971 (Q90), to $2,352 (Q95) in monthly revenue
• Health & Fitness significantly outperforms all other categories, however we segment them: From the bottom quartile to the top 5%, all generate more revenue 12 months in than any other category

Revenue, one year after launch, by category

2024 predictions

Alongside the insights and analyses scattered throughout this report, our guest experts provided their predictions for 2024.

While we don’t have room to include them in full, in this section we distill them into the key points.

However, you can read the full predictions, in our experts’ own words here.

Rising trends in pricing and no-trial models

Pricing and packaging trends:

• Subscription prices will continue to rise, driven by the need to balance unit economics with escalating user acquisition costs and a desire for some apps to differentiate themselves as premium offerings
• More apps will adopt no-trial subscription plans, moving away from the common free trial model towards upfront subscriptions for specific user segments or features
• The use of longer, more detailed paywalls will become more common, providing users with extensive information to justify higher price points

Hybrid monetization and strategic diversification

Monetization

• There will be a notable increase in hybrid monetization models, as apps begin combining subscription revenue with non-renewable in-app purchases, in-app ads, partnerships, e-commerce, and affiliate marketing
• The debate over the best subscription model (annual vs. monthly) will intensify, considering factors like conversion rates, churn, and strategic goals

Market and product strategy shifts

• Apps will increasingly launch tangential products, leveraging cross-promotion for growth as expanding the user base becomes more challenging
• There will be a resurgence of niche apps and a strategy shift towards building portfolios of smaller apps to diversify risk and tap into specific market segments

AI dominance and enhanced personalization in user experience

Technological and operational innovations

• AI will dominate discussions, significantly influencing app development and marketing strategies
• Apps will increasingly personalize paywalls, onboarding, and user journeys using first-party data to improve the user experience and engagement

Customer experience and engagement

• Exceptional customer support, targeted problem-solving, and high-quality products will become key differentiators, especially for apps targeting Gen Z and those seeking virality on platforms like TikTok
• Developers will experiment more with post-trial onboardings and direct purchase options to improve conversion rates post-trial

Adapting to new regulations and navigating investment trends

Industry dynamics and regulatory environment

• The regulatory landscape for in-app purchases will continue to evolve, with third-party payment processors and app stores remaining a focus but viable for only a minority of apps
• Apple might launch an OS-level ad network, significantly impacting iOS app monetization and advertising strategies

Investment landscape

• The investment climate will remain cautious, with an increased focus on product-led growth strategies such as paywall testing, CRM, and referral programs to enhance conversion from install to purchase
• Investor interest in top-tier subscription apps will surge, leading to substantial valuation premiums and potentially revitalizing consumer M&A and investment in standout companies