How Long Does It Take for an App to Make Money?
TrendApps Research · updated October 6, 2026 · 61,555 apps
Apps under one year old earn more than $1,000 a month 9.3% of the time. Between one and three years old, 20.9% earn. After three years the rate stays flat, at 23.2% for three-to-six-year-old apps. Apps older than six years earn 20.4% of the time — no better than the three-year-olds. Store revenue only; advertising income is not included, so ad-supported apps show as not earning here.
- 9.3%
- of apps under 1 year earn $1k+
- 20.9%
- of apps aged 1–3 years earn $1k+
- 2.2×
- jump after the first year
- 19.1%
- single-app publishers earn $1k+
Year one is the wall
The earning rate more than doubles between the first year and the next two, from 9.3% to 20.9% — a 2.2× jump, the largest anywhere on the curve.
The store ranking systems need months of retention and rating data before they surface an app; users need to meet it more than once; the developer needs a few releases to fix what the first users found. Most apps that do not earn in year one have not failed — they are not done yet.
Does an older app earn more?
Apps between three and six years old earn 23.2% of the time; apps older than six years earn 20.4%. Past year one the curve is flat, within a couple of points.
Age past the first year buys nothing on its own: store revenue follows current users, and current users follow current updates. Old apps still on the charts are old apps that kept shipping.
Does publishing more apps help?
Apps from single-app publishers earn more than $1,000 a month 19.1% of the time; from two-to-three-app publishers 19.4%; from publishers with eleven or more, 9.4%. The median earning app from a large portfolio makes $30k a month against $40k for a single-app publisher.
Spray-and-pray shows up as half the hit rate and half the payoff. A second app built on the audience of the first can work; eleven reskins do not.
Data table
| Publisher portfolio | Apps | Earn $1k+/mo | Median (earners) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 app | 35,543 | 19.1% | $40k |
| 2 – 3 apps | 12,273 | 19.4% | $40k |
| 4 – 10 apps | 7,871 | 17.3% | $50k |
| 11+ apps | 5,868 | 9.4% | $30k |
What "success rate" means with this data
- Earn more than $1k/month11,073 apps
- At or below the floor50,482 apps
Across all ages, 18.0% of tracked apps earn more than $1,000 a month. Numbers you may have seen elsewhere — "99.5% of apps fail" — are about all apps ever published, most of which never reached a chart.
This catalogue is drawn from the top charts, so the rate here is the rate among apps that got some traction: the right benchmark for a launched app, an optimistic one for an idea.
What this means if you're building an app
Budget a year — not because the app needs a year of development, but because the store needs a year of signal. The earning rate in year one is 9.3%; in years one to three it is 20.9%.
Ship updates through that year even when revenue is flat, and resist the second app until the first one is earning: one app with full attention earns twice as often per app as eleven with divided attention.
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 2026-10-06, 61,555 active apps.
Related reports
- How Much Do Mobile Apps Make? Revenue Data From Every Tracked App
18.0% of apps earn more than $1,000 a month; the rest sit at or below the floor.
- Do App Ratings Affect Revenue? Rating Count vs Rating Score
Rating count is the stronger signal: under 100 ratings → 3.8% earn; 100k+ ratings → 53.5%.
- Mobile App Revenue by Category: Which Categories Make the Most Money?
Highest share of earning apps: Dating at 56.3%.