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App Imp

Benchmarks and cutoffs.

Every threshold this site publishes, and every industry figure it cites, kept apart, because they are not the same kind of number.

Counted by us

01

When a complaint counts as a gap

Both bars have to clear at once.

Reviews behind itbelow this, the share is noise
at least 20, across the market
Breadthone app's bug is not a market's gap
at least half the apps counted
02

Graded words

The only three words allowed to lead a claim, each a fixed multiple of the store's typical rate. Below the first cutoff no word is used at all.

elevated
from 1.15 times typical
high
from 2 times typical
extreme
from 3.5 times typical
03

Store-wide theme baselines

Share of the 1,265,658 negative reviews carrying each theme, across all 12,734 classified apps in the 2026-09-02 weekly count. This is the typical rate every "times typical" figure on the site divides against. A review can carry more than one theme, so the shares sum past 100%. Re-baselined 2026-09-02: the classifier was re-measured against hand-scored samples and tightened (it had counted the word "account" as a login complaint and "useless" as an accuracy one), so shares from earlier weekly counts are not comparable with these.

Billing389,680 reviews
30.8% of negative reviews
Performance206,196 reviews
16.3% of negative reviews
Ads128,856 reviews
10.2% of negative reviews
Support98,544 reviews
7.8% of negative reviews
Login & auth94,946 reviews
7.5% of negative reviews
UX61,897 reviews
4.9% of negative reviews
Limits & caps23,484 reviews
1.9% of negative reviews
Accuracy18,758 reviews
1.5% of negative reviews
Content18,453 reviews
1.5% of negative reviews
Sync & data11,152 reviews
0.9% of negative reviews

Cited, not counted

Everything below is published by RevenueCat, State of Subscription Apps 2026, 115,000+ apps · $16B+ tracked revenue · >1B transactions. We did not measure any of it, none of it feeds a score of ours, and we attach no verdict to it. Rows from an older edition say so.

04

Paywalls and trials

Cited
hard paywalls out-convert freemium (install → paid, ~day 35)
10.7% vs 2.1%
hard paywalls out-earn freemium, revenue per install
D14 $2.32 vs $0.27 · D60 $3.09 vs $0.38
the catch is not retention: 1-year annual-plan retention is near-identical across models
~27% vs ~28%
longer trials convert better: 17–32-day vs under-4-day, median trial→paid
42.5% vs 25.5%
half of all paid conversions happen the first day the app is opened
~50% on day 0
the market moves the other way anyway: under-4-day trials were ≈ half of all trials in 2025
46.5% share
05

Plan length and renewals

Cited
yearly plans renew far better than short cycles
83.4% yearly renewal: more than four times weekly, about twice monthly
the annual-churn cliff is month one
35% of all annual cancellations land in month 1
cancelled annuals rarely return
annual reactivation ~5%; monthly subscribers return at about four times that rate
weekly plans are now the revenue engine for most categories
55.5% of all subscription revenue; best 12-mo LTV when paired with a trial (Health & Fitness is the exception)
duration mix sold skews annualHealth & Fitness
68% of subscriptions sold are annual
the monthly-first categoryProductivity
77% of subscriptions sold are monthly · 91% of revenue from monthly (different denominators, both true)
renewal rates by planHealth & Fitness
weekly 54% (top-3 of 11) · monthly 57% · annual 25% (mid-table)
steady mid-table renewals across all plan lengthsUtilities
habitual use keeps churn flat regardless of billing cycle
06

Price, revenue and refunds

Cited
cheaper apps keep annual subscribers better
1-yr annual retention: low-priced 36% · mid 26% · high 23%
highest install LTV of any categoryHealth & Fitness
$1.21
highest refund rate of any categoryEducation
4.86% (2025 edition)
second-highest refund rateHealth & Fitness
4.71% (2025 edition)
07

The market itself

Cited
the median app barely grows; the tails are extreme
median MRR +5.3% YoY · top decile +306% · bottom decile contracting
the launch flood vs the incumbency moat
~2,000 → 14,700+ new subscription apps per month (Jan 2022 → Jan 2026), yet pre-2020 apps still hold 69% of subscription revenue
even top categories take over 100 days to reach $10k revenue
>100 days to the first $10k
AI-powered apps churn annuals faster
annual retention 21.1% vs 30.7% non-AI; cancellations ~30% faster

A further 11 cited rows are held back rather than shown, because each reaches us through a relay or carries an edition ambiguity we have not resolved at the source. They ship when that is settled, not before. Our own numbers are re-counted weekly from App Store reviews; nothing here is modelled, and per-keyword search-volume estimates are refused outright. See the counted app ideas for what the cutoffs above produce.