App statistics by category
TrendApps Research · updated September 11, 2026 · 59,282 apps
34 categories, ranked by size. Each category with 200 or more tracked apps links to a full report: how many of its apps earn, what earners make, iOS versus Android, free versus paid, ratings, app age and revenue per download. Categories that exist on only one store are labelled. Store revenue only; advertising income is not included.
How the categories compare
Area = apps tracked · colour = share earning $1k+/month (darker = higher)
33 categories have at least 200 tracked apps and their own report. Dating and Social Networking apps earn most often, at 60.4% and 43.7%. At the other end, Events apps earn 3.9% of the time. Earning often and earning big are different questions: Entertainment earners have the highest median at $200k a month.
Games are the largest category with 3,930 apps and one of the highest earning rates, because free-with-IAP is universal there. Store taxonomies differ: 2 categories exist only on the App Store and 10 only on Google Play, and each is labelled on its page. Categories with the same meaning on both stores — Social Networking and Social, Photo & Video and Photography, Utilities and Tools — are merged so a category page spans both platforms.
Every category, ranked by size
| Category | Apps | Earn $1k+/mo | Median (earners) | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Games | 3,930 | 40.8% | $60k | Android + iOS |
| Books & Reference | 3,420 | 18.3% | $40k | Android + iOS |
| Utilities | 3,195 | 17.7% | $90k | Android + iOS |
| Lifestyle | 3,013 | 15.7% | $70k | Android + iOS |
| Entertainment | 2,489 | 22.7% | $200k | Android + iOS |
| Travel | 2,459 | 10.2% | $20k | Android + iOS |
| Productivity | 2,445 | 18.7% | $100k | Android + iOS |
| Education | 2,407 | 21.0% | $80k | Android + iOS |
| Finance | 2,383 | 17.5% | $20k | Android + iOS |
| Music | 2,360 | 18.9% | $40k | Android + iOS |
| Health & Fitness | 2,353 | 21.8% | $100k | Android + iOS |
| Sports | 2,347 | 10.9% | $50k | iOS |
| Food & Drink | 2,224 | 8.5% | $10k | Android + iOS |
| Medical | 2,211 | 11.0% | $10k | Android + iOS |
| Business | 2,043 | 14.6% | $60k | Android + iOS |
| Navigation | 1,939 | 20.1% | $20k | Android + iOS |
| Weather | 1,854 | 11.8% | $20k | Android + iOS |
| Personalization | 1,844 | 4.6% | $10k | Android |
| Photo & Video | 1,761 | 25.8% | $80k | Android + iOS |
| News | 1,753 | 19.3% | $20k | Android + iOS |
| Graphics & Design | 1,542 | 26.7% | $30k | Android + iOS |
| Shopping | 1,466 | 14.5% | $10k | Android + iOS |
| Social Networking | 1,338 | 43.7% | $80k | Android + iOS |
| Developer Tools | 1,275 | 5.2% | $10k | iOS |
| Events | 868 | 3.9% | $10k | Android |
| Auto & Vehicles | 670 | 8.4% | $10k | Android |
| House & Home | 665 | 8.4% | $10k | Android |
| Parenting | 645 | 11.9% | $30k | Android |
| Beauty | 513 | 10.5% | $8k | Android |
| Communication | 474 | 31.6% | $30k | Android |
| Comics | 472 | 9.7% | $30k | Android |
| Libraries & Demo | 418 | 11.2% | $10k | Android |
| Dating | 260 | 60.4% | $20k | Android |
| Video Players & Editors | 36 | 19.4% | $20k | Android |
Categories under 200 tracked apps are listed without a report; the sample is too small to split further.
Questions developers ask
How these numbers are computed
- An app counts as earning when its estimated monthly store revenue is above $1,000. Estimates below that sit at a floor of $1,000, so medians across all apps would be meaningless; every ratio on this page is the share of a segment above that floor.
- Revenue and downloads are estimates in bands ($5k–10k by $1k, $10k–100k by $10k, then by $100k and $1M). Medians among earners are the median band.
- Store revenue only — paid downloads and IAP (in-app purchases, including subscriptions). Advertising income is never included, so ad-supported apps show as not earning.
- Apps enter the catalogue from the US top charts, including Top Paid, so paid apps are over-represented. Ratios by monetization model are unaffected; overall ratios lean slightly paid.
- Delisted apps are excluded; unrated apps are excluded from rating charts. Recomputed after every crawl — last data point 2026-09-11, 59,282 active apps.