---
title: "How Long Does It Take for an App to Make Money?"
description: "App age versus revenue across tens of thousands of iOS and Android apps: how many earn in year one, when the earning rate plateaus, and whether publishing more apps helps."
url: https://trendapps.dev/statistics/how-long-until-an-app-makes-money/
markdown: https://trendapps.dev/statistics/how-long-until-an-app-makes-money/index.md
updated: 2026-09-11
apps: 59282
source: TrendApps
license: CC BY 4.0
---

# How Long Does It Take for an App to Make Money?

TrendApps Research · updated 2026-09-11 · 59,282 apps

Apps under one year old earn more than $1,000 a month 9.4% of the time. Between one and three years old, 21.7% earn. After three years the rate stays flat, at 23.8% for three-to-six-year-old apps. Apps older than six years earn 20.5% 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.

- **9.4%** — of apps under 1 year earn $1k+
- **21.7%** — of apps aged 1–3 years earn $1k+
- **2.3×** — jump after the first year
- **19.4%** — single-app publishers earn $1k+

## Share of apps earning, by age

15,215 tracked apps are less than a year old and 9.4% of them earn more than $1,000 a month; at one to three years it is 21.7%, at three to six 23.8%, and past six years 20.5%.

Age is time since the app first appeared on the store, so the under-one-year band includes apps that launched last week. That makes the year-one number harsh but honest.

Share of apps earning $1k+/month, by time since first store release

| Item | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Under 1 year | 9.4% |
| 1 – 3 years | 21.7% |
| 3 – 6 years | 23.8% |
| 6+ years | 20.5% |

How the catalogue splits by app age

| Slice | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Under 1 year | 15,215 · 25.8% |
| 1 – 3 years | 11,649 · 19.7% |
| 3 – 6 years | 9,003 · 15.2% |
| 6+ years | 23,201 · 39.3% |

Data table

| App age | Apps | Earn $1k+/mo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Under 1 year | 15,215 | 9.4% |
| 1 – 3 years | 11,649 | 21.7% |
| 3 – 6 years | 9,003 | 23.8% |
| 6+ years | 23,201 | 20.5% |

## Year one is the wall

The earning rate more than doubles between the first year and the next two, from 9.4% to 21.7% — a 2.3× 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.

Share earning $1k+/month by app age, iOS vs Android

| — | iOS | Android |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Under 1 year | 7.9% | 11.4% |
| 1 – 3 years | 22.7% | 20.6% |
| 3 – 6 years | 22.6% | 25.0% |
| 6+ years | 17.2% | 26.5% |

## Does an older app earn more?

Apps between three and six years old earn 23.8% of the time; apps older than six years earn 20.5%. 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.

Earning rate past the first year

| Item | Value |
| --- | --- |
| 1 – 3 years | 21.7% |
| 3 – 6 years | 23.8% |
| 6+ years | 20.5% |

## Does publishing more apps help?

Apps from single-app publishers earn more than $1,000 a month 19.4% of the time; from two-to-three-app publishers 19.6%; from publishers with eleven or more, 9.7%. The median earning app from a large portfolio makes $20k 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.

Share earning $1k+/month, by number of apps the publisher has

| Item | Value |
| --- | --- |
| 1 app | 19.4% · median $40k |
| 2 – 3 apps | 19.6% · median $50k |
| 4 – 10 apps | 17.6% · median $50k |
| 11+ apps | 9.7% · median $20k |

Median monthly revenue among earners, by publisher size

| Item | Value |
| --- | --- |
| 1 app | $40k |
| 2 – 3 apps | $50k |
| 4 – 10 apps | $50k |
| 11+ apps | $20k |

Data table

| Publisher portfolio | Apps | Earn $1k+/mo | Median (earners) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 app | 34,246 | 19.4% | $40k |
| 2 – 3 apps | 11,813 | 19.6% | $50k |
| 4 – 10 apps | 7,590 | 17.6% | $50k |
| 11+ apps | 5,633 | 9.7% | $20k |

## What "success rate" means with this data

Across all ages, 18.3% 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.

Apps that reached a top chart: earning vs not

| Slice | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Earn more than $1k/month | 10,856 apps |
| At or below the floor | 48,426 apps |

## 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 9.4%; in years one to three it is 21.7%.

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.

Next step: See apps that reached the charts this month → — https://trendapps.dev/top-trending-apps/?monetizing_only=true

## Questions developers ask

### How long does it take for an app to make money?

Most apps that earn do so after their first year: 9.4% of apps under a year old make more than $1,000 a month, against 21.7% of apps between one and three years old. After three years the rate stops rising.

### What percentage of apps fail?

Among apps that reached a top chart, 81.7% do not earn more than $1,000 a month from the stores. Across all apps ever published, the share is much higher. Ad revenue is not counted.

### How many apps are successful?

18.3% of the 59,282 apps TrendApps tracks earn more than $1,000 a month; 10,856 apps in total. Among those, the median makes $40k a month.

### When do apps start making money?

The biggest jump in earning rate is between the first year (9.4%) and years one to three (21.7%). The stores need months of retention and rating data before they surface an app.

### Does publishing more apps increase revenue?

Not per app. Apps from publishers with 11 or more apps earn $1k+/month 9.7% of the time, against 19.4% for single-app publishers. Their earners also make less — a median of $20k versus $40k.

### What is a realistic first-year app revenue?

For most apps, under $1,000 a month: only 9.4% of apps under a year old clear that line. If yours does, the median among all earning apps is $40k a month.

## Methodology

- 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 every population-wide figure is the share of a segment above that floor; medians are computed only among apps above it.
- 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.

## Related

- [How Much Do Mobile Apps Make? Revenue Data From Every Tracked App](https://trendapps.dev/statistics/how-much-do-mobile-apps-make/index.md)
- [Do App Ratings Affect Revenue? Rating Count vs Rating Score](https://trendapps.dev/statistics/app-ratings-and-revenue/index.md)
- [Mobile App Revenue by Category: Which Categories Make the Most Money?](https://trendapps.dev/statistics/app-revenue-by-category/index.md)

Source: https://trendapps.dev/statistics/how-long-until-an-app-makes-money/ · Markdown: https://trendapps.dev/statistics/how-long-until-an-app-makes-money/index.md · Methodology: https://trendapps.dev/methodology/