How the Best Subscription Apps Print Money in 2025

Summary

In 2025, subscription apps are transforming the way income is generated through digital platforms, but only for those who innovate and differentiate. The RevenueCat report, a comprehensive 262-page document, offers insight into the industry trends shaping profitable apps. It covers key aspects like subscription duration, free trial periods, average revenue per install, retention rates, and churn. With data gathered from over 75,000 apps, it highlights the growing challenges and increasing gaps between top-performing apps and others. Key findings suggest that AI-based apps thrive with unique offerings and that retention needs to begin on day one due to high initial churn rates.

Highlights

• AI apps are very profitable but must be unique to succeed. 🚀
• Churn is significant in the first month; retention efforts should start immediately. 🔄
• Low-cost annual plans retain users better than expensive monthly subscriptions. 💰
• The gap between top and bottom-performing apps is widening. 📈
• Offering a combination of subscriptions, consumables, or lifetime purchases is becoming popular. 🔄

Key Takeaways

• Subscription apps can generate significant revenue by offering unique, standout experiences. ✨
• AI apps are profitable, but differentiation is key to standing out in a crowded market. 🚀
• Retention is critical and should start on day one due to high cancellation rates in the first month. 🔄
• Combining subscriptions with consumables or lifetime purchases can boost revenue. 💡
• Low-priced annual plans tend to retain more users than high-priced monthly plans. 💰

Overview

The 2025 RevenueCat State of Subscription Apps report dives deep into the dynamics of subscription app businesses. It illustrates how while AI apps can generate substantial revenue, they must offer something unique to stand out in an increasingly crowded field. Similar trends are revealed across other app categories regarding subscription durations and retention challenges.

User retention emerges as a critical aspect, with the report emphasizing the need for strategies to combat high churn rates within the first month of subscription. For app creators, starting retention plans from the first day can significantly alter long-term success, given the 30% churn rate observed in annual subscriptions during their first month.

The analysis also sheds light on evolving business models where a mix of subscriptions and consumables is favored. This adaptability reflects on the stereotypes associated with app revenue paths, showcasing innovative avenues like offering token-based consumable packages with subscriptions as a promising revenue enhancer.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to the State of Subscription Apps Report RevenuCat has released their State of Subscription Apps report for 2025, filled with essential data for app developers. This comprehensive 262-page document details the predominant subscription durations (weekly, monthly, annual) by category, analyzes the prevalence of free trials and their durations, examines conversion rates from trial to paid subscriptions, and presents statistics like average revenue per install and retention rates. It's a vital resource for understanding monetization tactics in the app industry.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Methodology and App Inclusion Criteria The chapter titled 'Methodology and App Inclusion Criteria' discusses the process undertaken to understand the content of a report provided by RevenueCat. It begins with an emphasis on the importance of examining the methodology of any report or study, especially when such reports make headlines. The discussion includes insights from a 45-minute podcast featuring Jacob, the CEO of RevenueCat, and David Bernard, a developer advocate at RevenueCat, who elaborate on the details of the report. The chapter sets the stage for deeper engagement with the data by highlighting the importance of scrutinizing the methods used to gather and analyze data.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Executive Summary and Key Insights The chapter provides an executive summary and key insights into a study's methodology. It discusses the inclusion criteria for apps, specifying that they must have active subscription revenue and meet minimum thresholds for installs or revenue to ensure meaningful findings. Apps must also have integrated with RevenueCap, excluding side projects that didn't generate significant income. The sample size was over 75,000 apps across various categories.
• 03:30 - 04:30: Trial Durations by Category This chapter examines the length of trial periods across different product categories. A key takeaway is that fitness productivity has generated over 10 billion in revenue with more than a billion transactions, offering a robust sample size for accurate data outcomes. Key figures from the executive summary include the insight that AI apps, while lucrative, require differentiation to succeed, as they generate about 63 cents per install after 60 days. The chapter emphasizes that AI alone is insufficient for success without standing out from competitors, as the market is saturated with similar AI offerings. Additionally, it notes that subscriptions are no longer adequate, highlighting a shift in consumer expectations, with only 35% of users continuing after the trial period.
• 04:30 - 05:30: Types of Subscriptions Sold by Category The chapter discusses various types of app subscriptions, focusing on the combination of subscriptions with consumables or lifetime purchases. Consumables are primarily associated with games, but are also relevant in AI services where users purchase tokens for additional requests. The chapter highlights the challenge of churn, noting that nearly 30% of annual subscriptions are cancelled in the first month, emphasizing the importance of immediate retention efforts from day one.
• 06:00 - 07:30: Revenue Milestones: Days to Achieve The chapter titled 'Revenue Milestones: Days to Achieve' discusses strategies for app retention and revenue generation. It emphasizes the importance of starting retention efforts from day one, citing that 30% of annual subscriptions do not renew. The text contrasts low-price annual plans, which retain about 36% of users after a year, with high-price monthly plans that retain only 6.7%. The chapter suggests encouraging users to choose the annual plan, regardless of price, to enhance retention. It also mentions the growing disparity between top-performing apps and others in terms of revenue, highlighting the challenges indie apps face in making money on app platforms like the app store.
• 08:30 - 11:00: Download to Trial to Paid Conversion Rates The chapter titled 'Download to Trial to Paid Conversion Rates' discusses the disparity in revenue among apps, highlighting that the top-ranking apps generate the most significant income. This success is attributed to being part of an elite group, which is increasingly challenging to join due to growing competition. The chapter underscores the widening gap between high-earning and low-earning apps, noting it has expanded significantly since the previous year's metrics, cited as 200x. Additionally, it mentions a specific interest in trial duration metrics by category, with a reference to detailed analysis present in a lengthy report.
• 11:00 - 12:00: Pricing Strategies by Category and Geography This chapter discusses the variation in trial durations offered by different categories, highlighting how trial lengths vary by the nature of products or services. For example, in gaming, 96.3% of trials are four days or less, whereas for health and fitness, most trials range from 5 to 9 days, likely a week-long trial. Readers are encouraged to explore trial periods across different categories to identify common practices.
• 12:00 - 12:30: Conclusion and Further Insights In the conclusion, it is evident that the majority of trials, regardless of the category, last 9 days or less. This is visualized in the data by the orange and indigo bars which almost fully represent this duration in most categories, suggesting that a week-long trial is the ideal duration. Despite the median entertainment duration having a slightly higher percentage, 9.3% within 17 to 32 days, it remains a minimal share. The green and orange bars are notably minimal across categories, reinforcing the trend that a shorter trial period is prevalent.

How the Best Subscription Apps Print Money in 2025 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 revenue Cat has released their state of subscription apps for 2025 and it's jam-packed with valuable information it's 262 pages so it's a lot but so much valuable information if you're trying to make money from your app things like what subscription duration are being sold the most within your category right is it weekly monthly annual in your category are apps typically offering free trials and if they are what is the length of that trial is it a couple days a week a month what percentage goes from trial to paid what is the average revenue per install what does retention
• 00:30 - 01:00 look like in each category and so much more so in this video I'm going to walk you through some of the data that I found most interesting give you my thoughts on it but you can also hear Jacob the CEO of RevenueCat and David Bernard a developer advocate at RevenueCat talk through this whole report in a 45minute long podcast and this isn't sponsored they just put out an awesome report and I wanted to share it so let's dive in now the first thing I always do with a report like this is dive into the methodology because anytime a report comes out like this or any headline in the news you know quoting a study always look at the
• 01:00 - 01:30 methodology to look at what data that study was based off of so here's the methodology section in the report let's talk about the scope of apps included we included apps that have active subscription revenue meet a minimum threshold of installs or revenue to ensure statistically meaningful findings and have integrated revenue cap so this eliminates that whole graveyard of side projects that never really made any money so you have to have a certain number of installs and are making a little bit of money to be included in this report so what is the size and composition that equaled over 75,000 apps across all categories right health
• 01:30 - 02:00 fitness productivity over 10 billion in revenue with more than a billion transactions so pretty large sample size you're probably going to get pretty accurate data here all right let's go back up to the executive summary which are you know some big headline numbers uh we all know this ai apps print money but only if they stand out so about 63 cents per install after 60 days but AI alone won't drive success differentiation does right there's a whole lot of AI slop out there you got to separate yourself from that but if you do again they print money uh subscriptions aren't enough anymore 35%
• 02:00 - 02:30 of apps now mix subscriptions with consumables or a lifetime purchase now consumables I typically think of with games but obviously you know with AI in tokens because that's how these LLMs charge for their services so a lot of apps you can you can buy tokens to do more AI requests so that's where consumables come in churn hits hard and fast nearly 30% of annual subscriptions are cancelled in the first month so retention starts on day one don't think that you can start your retention efforts when they're about to renew a year later they're probably already gone
• 02:30 - 03:00 by then so start retention day one because 30% of your annual subscriptions don't renew low prices keep users locked in most apps with cheap annual plans keep up to 36% of their users subscribed after a year that's good high price monthly plans only 6.7% stick around so get them in your annual plan if you can no matter what the price and then lastly the gap between the winners and the rest is growing this has been long known on the app store the conventional thinking here is that it's very hard to make money from indie apps like on the app store and that's because you know a lot
• 03:00 - 03:30 of the bottom apps don't make money but the top apps make all the money so if you get into that top group it's very good very lucrative but man it's it's pretty hard to get into that group and this gap has grown significantly since last year's 200x so it's getting harder and harder to break through but if you do things are good so like I said it's over 262 pages i am not going to go page by page there's a couple pieces of data that I wanted to highlight so let's start with trial duration by category and that was on page 37 so I'm going to scroll down to 37 again we're going to
• 03:30 - 04:00 jump around here but I thought this was interesting trial durations by category so are people offering a couple day trials a week-l long trial two week trial month-long trial per category and again there's some variation in this data here gaming look 96.3% are 4 days or less kind of makes sense for gaming but look health and fitness most of them are 5 to 9 days it's probably a oneweek trial but you can go through your category and see where most of the trial periods are now the thing I found interesting is that
• 04:00 - 04:30 almost all of them look if you look at the orange bar and the indigo bar that makes up almost 100% no matter what category you're in so if you look at that that's 9 days or less so the obvious trend is that having a a week-long trial is probably the way to go now median entertainment at 9.3% of 17 to 32 days but still that's not a big number like look this orange bar and the green bar are very small pretty much on any category so I don't But I thought that was interesting that the vast vast majority of trials are 9 days or less
• 04:30 - 05:00 now let's go to what type of subscriptions are sold so here share subscriptions sold by category again weekly monthly yearly what categories are selling what type of subscriptions and the big chunks of colors are like what jump out at me and the small slivers of colors so gaming pretty much all of them are selling weekly trials health and fitness most of them are annual 66.6% and only a sliver down here are weekly same thing with education that's almost never weekly it's you know mostly annual but business interestingly enough that's mostly weekly so you'd have to dive into this and I do want to
• 05:00 - 05:30 say about this report at the end they dive into each category like business education gaming and do a deep dive get more granular per category what I'm showcasing is kind of like the big overview picture so if you are building let's say a business app an education app you want to dive into that section and thoroughly go through that but we're keeping it big picture for this overview so this was share of subscription sold by category but you also have it by geography now I think this is all kind of the same nothing too interesting here let me back up here and clarify this there's a couple different ways to look
• 05:30 - 06:00 at this too you can look at it from an indie developer perspective where you know maybe you don't have a ton of users or if you're looking at this from a large app that has millions and millions of users well in that case every little percentage matters so yeah I just kind of nonchalantly said "Ah this is all kind of the same data because there's not a lot of fluctuation in it between like yearly monthly weekly." But again that's from the indie developers perspective if your app has tens and tens of millions of users these small percentages matter immensely all right the next one I found super interesting was the days to revenue milestones so I
• 06:00 - 06:30 believe that was on 65 no 66 here so median number of days from launch to revenue milestones that's 1,000 MR 2500 MRR 5,000 MR and 10,000 MRR now for the apps that make it there that's the key what this data is showing is that of the apps that actually hit 1,000 MR how long did it take him to get there of the apps that actually hit 10,000 MR how long did it take them to get there obviously there's a whole bajillion apps that never see 1,000 MR or definitely 10,000
• 06:30 - 07:00 MR so keep that in mind with these percentages if an app does hit these numbers here's the median of how many days it took them to do that per category 2 which is interesting so you see the orange bar is a thousand MR and what's the quickest here looks like gaming is the quickest which is you know not shocking they're the quickest to like all the milestones so if you do have a game that takes off and hits usually hits pretty quick let's look at the slower burns looks like shopping more of a slower burn for pretty much all the milestones travel is a little bit of a slower burn so the shorter bars
• 07:00 - 07:30 are categories where if you do hit those numbers it can happen quickly now there's pros and cons to that right if it happens quickly it could go away quickly uh if it's a slow burn it's usually more of a sign of a healthier business but that is being very stereotypical there's obviously exceptions on both sides of that but I thought this was an interesting stat and then similarly share of newly launched apps that hit revenue milestones in their first two years so this is the percentage of apps that actually hit 1,000 MR or hit 2500 MRR again within
• 07:30 - 08:00 the category so if you have an app ID in mind and you're going to launch in one of these categories here's a good indicator of what percentage of apps hit a,000 MR 10,000 MR etc but again remember the methodology again this is why the methodology is so important this isn't every app that is ever launched right in order for an app to be included in this report it has to be making at least some revenue and have some level of downloads so that eliminates a whole long tale of apps that do absolutely nothing right so keep that in mind when looking at these percentages and you can go category by category so the leader
• 08:00 - 08:30 here for 10,000 MR is photo and video almost 30% of apps that get some revenue remember because that's what you have to do to get included will hit 1,000 MR and photo and video is also the leader at 8.75% to hit 10,000 MR so it looks like photo and video is a pretty lucrative app category so I thought this was pretty useful information again if you have an app idea you're thinking of launching this is a nice data point when assessing the likelihood of success within your category now before you can get any of these MR milestones you have to get people from trial to paid so what is that like i believe that's back up
• 08:30 - 09:00 here on page nine told you I was jumping around a little bit well not nine uh 10 so down or you go download the trial so how many downloads turn into a trial and then you can go how many trials turn into paid and you can see those percentages in this report not only per category again you see the categories here but also per geography because that matters too so here you can see download the trial by category now these candle charts are broken down into quartiles so like the bottom wick of the candle is the bottom you know the lower 25th percentile and then the top is actually the top 90th percentile and then you got
• 09:00 - 09:30 the midc quartiles uh in here at the top of the candle and the bottom of the candle they explain how to read this in the methodology section but I'm just going to again point out the highlights so you can't just blanketly say that oh health and fitness starts the most trials because that is the upper 90% the best of the best so you can compare yourself against that if you think you have the capability of getting there or you can look at like okay what do the worst do how do they do and maybe maybe set your expectations low at the floor but anyway it's valuable information to see the typical download to trial rate by each category and then you also have it or here's hard payw wall versus
• 09:30 - 10:00 premium so you can see hard payw walls get that day zero conversion because they have no other choice they either start a trial or they exit the app so you do get that day zero conversion but as time goes on here you see week six or later fremium starts to convert a lot more than hard payw wall which kind of makes sense right because a hard payw wall can't really do anything in the app so they may never come back but you know there's no right answer it's a hard payw wall right or is fremium right you know it's it's the right answer for your app and the best thing to do it's such a it always sounds like such a copout answer ah just test it for your app and see which one works better but like that is
• 10:00 - 10:30 the answer everyone just wants the hey what should I do tell me the right answer the truth is no one knows you got to test it for your app in fact I'm doing that right now with Creator View i am testing out a hard payw wall that release should go out in a couple days it's not out currently curious to see how that goes because right now I'm premium and I'm not really converting all that much so I'm hoping to see an increase in conversions with the hard payw wall so I am testing that myself but you also get downloaded trial by geography so like what regions typically start a trial from the download you have it by price point right higher prices correlate to high higher trial
• 10:30 - 11:00 conversion rates kind of makes sense right if it's a super cheap price point app you're going to get a lot of downloads not a lot of conversions so that's going to affect your percentage if it's an expensive app probably have more high intent users so that conversion percentage is going to be higher even though the absolute number is probably lower so again this is just a taste of the kind of information downloaded trial then you have trial to paid then there's if I scroll down a bit there's pricing medium price per plan duration by category so what's the median weekly monthly annual for a business app a gaming app health and fitness now of course you know do what
• 11:00 - 11:30 is right for your app but if you're curious you know what the median prices are here you go but then also by geography right so you should be changing your prices by geography now again this is where the indie dev mindset versus the big company mindset has different answers right because if you're an indie developer just use like the Big Mac index the Netflix index you know follow their ratios and just adjust your prices in each region according to that like that's the simple lowhanging fruit to me that's the bare minimum an indie dev can do it's pretty easy to do now again if your app has millions and millions and millions of users and these small percentages points a small price
• 11:30 - 12:00 change matters then you probably want to get more specific in each region to price it accordingly rather than just using a blanket you know Netflix index but here's some data on the median price per plan duration and yeah I think that was the last thing I want to show yeah we're back to share of subscriptions but that was just a taste there's so much more there's sections on retention acquisition Google Play versus the App Store cross-platform development and how that has been growing with AI there's a lot more React Native developers out there that are using AI to help them
• 12:00 - 12:30 build iOS apps and those apps are out there making money so we're seeing that growth and like I said the second half of the report is drilling down into each individual category like health and fitness productivity business to get even more granular with the data so I highly recommend diving into your category for your app to see that data so if you're trying to make money from your apps go download this report the link is in the description grab a coffee take a couple hours really read through it go through your category it is well worth your