How Much Do Mobile Apps Make? Revenue Data From Every Tracked App
TrendApps Research · updated September 11, 2026 · 59,282 apps
Of 59,282 active apps tracked by TrendApps, 18.3% earn more than $1,000 a month from the App Store and Google Play. Among the apps that do earn, the median is $40k a month. The top quarter of earners clears $200k a month. The top one percent of all apps collects 79.9% of the revenue in the catalogue. Store revenue only; advertising income is not included, so ad-supported apps show as not earning here.
- 18.3%
- of apps earn $1,000+ a month
- $40k
- median monthly revenue among earners
- $700k
- top 10% of earners make at least
- 79.9%
- of all revenue goes to the top 1%
What percentage of apps make money?
- Earn more than $1k/month10,849 apps
- At or below the $1k floor48,433 apps
48,426 of the 59,282 apps sit at the $1,000-a-month floor or below it, leaving 10,856 with meaningful store revenue. Estimates below $1,000 are reported as $1,000, so "earning" throughout means clearing that line.
The catalogue is drawn from the top charts, so it skews toward apps that got some traction; and ad revenue is invisible, so an ad-supported free app looks like a zero even when it pays rent.
Median revenue among apps that earn
Bar = 25th to 90th percentile · dot = median
Once an app clears the floor, the median is $40,000 a month; a quarter of earners make $10k or less and a quarter make $200k or more. The top tenth clears $700k.
This is the number people want when they ask "how much does an app make" — the typical app among the minority that monetizes through the store, not the average app. Percentiles are revenue bands, so a $40k median means the middle earner sits in the $40k band.
Data table
| Percentile (earning apps) | All | iOS | Android |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25th | $10,000 | $20,000 | $10,000 |
| 50th (median) | $40,000 | $70,000 | $30,000 |
| 75th | $200,000 | $300,000 | $100,000 |
| 90th | $700,000 | $900,000 | $400,000 |
The revenue ladder: how many apps at each level
1,860 apps sit between $5,000 and $9,000 a month, the first rung above the floor. 5,216 make between $10,000 and $90,000, the band most solo developers would call a business. 2,866 make six figures a month and 138 make $10 million or more.
Each rung is roughly a third the size of the one below it — no cliff, no plateau. "Can an app make $10k a month" and "can it make $100k" are the same kind of question with answers that differ by a predictable factor.
Data table
| Monthly revenue band | Apps |
|---|---|
| $1k or less | 48,426 |
| $5k – $9k | 1,860 |
| $10k – $90k | 5,216 |
| $100k – $900k | 2,866 |
| $1M – $9M | 776 |
| $10M+ | 138 |
The top 1% of apps
- Top 1% of apps79.9%
- Other 99% of apps20.1%
The top 1% of apps by revenue collects 79.9% of every dollar the catalogue earns; the other 99% share the rest.
A power law, like music streams or book sales. The practical reading is not "give up" but "do not benchmark against the top": the apps you can model a business on live in the $10k–$90k band, and there are thousands of them.
How many downloads apps actually get
Bar = 25th to 90th percentile · dot = median
31.8% of apps get more than 1,000 downloads a month; among those, the median is 60,000 a month and the top tenth passes 800,000.
Downloads and revenue do not move together: many apps in the 100k-downloads band earn nothing from the stores because they monetize with ads, and many under 10k downloads clear $10k a month on subscriptions.
Data table
| Monthly downloads band | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1k or fewer | 40,433 |
| 1k – 10k | 2,093 |
| 10k – 100k | 8,997 |
| 100k – 1M | 6,267 |
| 1M+ | 1,492 |
What indie and solo developers make
Apps published by a developer with a single app earn more than $1,000 a month 19.4% of the time, with a median of $40k among earners. Apps under a year old earn only 9.4% of the time, so the first year drags the solo number down.
Publisher size is the closest proxy the store data has for "indie", and the result is encouraging: a one-app publisher is not at a disadvantage against studios with a dozen titles.
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 this means if you're building an app
Set expectations from the earners, not the average: if your app clears the floor, the typical outcome is $40k a month and the top quarter is $200k or more. Only 18.3% of apps get there, in a catalogue already tilted toward apps that reached the charts.
The stores reward one shape of app: free to install, with something worth paying for inside. That is the biggest lever in this dataset — bigger than platform, category or ratings. Read the free-vs-paid report before anything else.
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.
Related reports
- Free vs Paid Apps: Which Model Actually Makes Money?
Free + IAP: 47.1% of apps earn $1k+ a month.
- How Long Does It Take for an App to Make Money?
Year one is the wall: 9.4% of apps under a year old earn $1k+/month.
- App Revenue per Download: What a Download Is Actually Worth
Median revenue per download: $1.43.