The Shippies celebrate outstanding achievement in app monetization, recognizing apps that don't just ship, but nail the entire subscription journey — from first onboarding screen to hundredth renewal.

This year, the Shippies got a night of their own. And because we never do things by halves, we held it on a real ship: the Intrepid Museum aircraft carrier in New York. Surrounded by great company (and a retired space shuttle), we had finalists, founders, and family gathered in one room to celebrate remarkable apps and the thinking behind them.

Every winner took home a personalized Golden Shippy trophy, and a spot on a Times Square billboard during New York App Week. Plus bragging rights, of course.

Here’s our seven winners, and the why behind their wins.

Full Steam Ahead: Runna

This award celebrates subscription growth excellence: the app that found the smartest routes to growth, not just the most obvious ones.

Runna has built a growth engine that reaches well beyond the App Store: web subscriptions, onboarding, and win-backs. Since joining Strava in 2025, Runna has been sold as part of a combined annual subscription. That gives Runna a new route to customers and puts its training plans right where runners already track and share their activity.

Why it won:

  • Distribution where users already are: the Strava + Runna bundle puts Runna inside runners’ existing routine and is available directly through Strava’s app and website
  • Growth across the funnel: web subscriptions, onboarding, and cancellation recovery all pull their weight
  • A place on the start line: an official training partner for the TCS New York City Marathon and the Boston Marathon, Runna reaches potential users at their most committed moment
  • Thinking beyond the paywall: growth comes from partnerships and lifecycle work, not just price tests

Runna is a strong reminder that your biggest growth lever might not live inside your app at all.

Treasure Chest: Audiomack

Treasure Chest recognizes the app with the most creative monetization: the most inventive ways to turn value into revenue.

Audiomack reaches more than 50 million listeners a month, with a truly global audience. Audiomack recognizes that a global audience varies widely in how willing and able people are to pay. So rather than forcing one model onto every listener in every market, it combines ads, subscriptions, and direct artist support.

Why it won:

  • Built for global reality: monetization reflects real differences in willingness and ability to pay, like offering day/week/month passes to Audiomack+ in Nigeria
  • Several ways in: hybrid monetization offers value to (and from) all types of listener — free listening with ads, a subscription priced for local wallets, and direct ways for fans to support the artists they love
  • Fans and creators both win: direct artist support ties revenue to the community at the heart of the app, via premium plans allowing fans to buy badges and hear music before release
  • Paying the way people actually pay: partnerships with Flutterwave and MTN add bank transfers, local cards, and mobile money

Audiomack shows that creative monetization often means offering more ways to pay, rather than trying to force different users through the same funnel.

Clear Waters: Structured

This category is about making the complicated simple. The award goes to an app that takes something messy, and makes it feel effortless for the user.

Structured turns a scattered day into one clear picture. Tasks, to-dos, and calendar events all sit on a single visual timeline, so you can see your whole day and what’s coming next. There’s no juggling between apps and no wading through detail.

Why it won:

  • One timeline for everything: tasks, to-dos, and appointments live together in one visual timeline at the core of the app
  • Works with the tools you already use: Structured syncs with your calendar and Apple Reminders, and imported to-dos land straight in your inbox or timeline
  • Guardrails against overplanning: the optional Energy Monitor warns you when you schedule more than you can handle
  • Somewhere for loose thoughts: the inbox holds ideas and tasks until you’re ready to schedule them, enabling you to capture thoughts without becoming overwhelmed
  • Recognized by Apple: App Store Editors’ Choice, a 2025 finalist for iPad App of the Year, and a 2026 Apple Design Awards finalist for Inclusivity

Structured is proof that there’s a surprising amount of complexity behind design that appears simple.

Level Up: Reading.com

Level Up is about the best learning experience: celebrating the app that helps people learn in a way that actually sticks.

Reading.com gives parents a structured way to teach their children to read, no teaching background or extra resources needed. The lessons are built to support two people at once: the child who's learning, and the parent who's helping them. Lessons are fully scripted and built on phonics and the Science of Reading.

Why it won:

  • Designed for two learners: lessons support both the child and the parent in their respective roles
  • No training required: simple UI and fully scripted lessons removes any guesswork, meaning any parent can step into the teacher’s role with confidence
  • Grounded in science: lessons use explicit phonics instruction that follows the Science of Reading
  • A clear path: the experience follows how learning actually happens, with step-by-step lessons building letter recognition towards different reading levels
  • Practice that reinforces every lesson: interactive, decodable storybooks come with videos, games, and printables

The best learning products are designed around the learner, and Reading.com goes one step further by designing around the whole household.

Beyond the Chatbox: Suno

This award goes to the app that offers the best AI experience; using AI to create something more than a text box and a reply.

Suno lets anyone turn an idea into a song, then keep shaping it until it sounds right. The model is impressive, but the real magic is the creative workflow built around it. An editor, studio tools, and personalization keep users in the creative seat long after the first take.

Why it won:

  • A workflow, not a one-off: the Song Editor lets users rearrange, extend, and replace sections and rewrite lyrics — continuing to edit and develop songs as long as they like
  • Creative control stays with the user: Covers, Personas, and Remaster let people explore new takes on a song, while Stems split a track into as many as 12 editable parts
  • Personal by design: Voices, Custom Models, and My Taste shape what Suno creates around each user’s personality and preferences, creating a truly unique experience for every user

Suno shows what an AI app looks like when the prompt is simply the creative jumping point, rather than the entire product.

Worth Coming Back For: Fitbod

Recognizing the app that has the best ongoing value, this category is about earning a subscription month after month.

Fitbod builds every workout around where you are right now. It tracks how recovered each muscle group is, learns from the sets you log, and adjusts as you get stronger. Your training keeps pace with your progress, and the app changes as your needs do, which gives people a strong reason to stay subscribed.

Why it won:

  • Progress you can see: Strength Score and Estimated Strength show how you’re improving over time and give users motivation to stay long-term
  • Workouts that respond to your body: every muscle group gets a recovery score, and Fitbod builds each session around the freshest muscles, meaning the lessons never get stale
  • Learns from you: Fitbod’s adaptive AI learns from your edits to its recommendations, alongside your goals, equipment, and experience

Fitbod is a textbook case of recurring value supporting recurring revenue.

Small Crew, Big Ship: CardPointers

This award celebrates the indie developer proving that you don't need a big team to build an exceptional app business.

CardPointers is the work of independent developer Emmanuel Crouvisier, who built a focused product around one problem: helping people get more value from the credit cards they already have. It started in 2019 as an evenings-and-weekends project. Within a year, it was earning him more than his day job.

Why it won:

  • A sharp focus: it solves one specific problem, and solves it well
  • Takes on mental load: CardPointers tells you which card to use for each purchase, so you get the most from category bonuses without memorizing them
  • Everywhere you spend: works across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, CarPlay, and Android, plus browser extensions
  • Smart business decisions: web checkout through Stripe saves Emmanuel as much as 27% in fees, and staying in Apple’s Small Business Program saves another 15% on in-app purchases

CardPointers is proof that with a clear problem and a lot of focus, a small crew can sail a very big ship.

Until next year…

The 2026 Shippies was a memorable night, not only celebrating our seven Shippies winners, but also recognizing the winners of Shipaton 2026, RevenueCat’s global mobile hackathon. Check out the list of all 21 Shipaton winners right here.

To the finalists, winners, and everyone who shipped something this year: congratulations! Like any voyage, it's not always smooth sailing, but shipping anything is a huge accomplishment. We’re excited to see what you build next.

So keep shipping — we'll see you at the Shippies ’27. Maybe next time, it'll be your app up on that billboard.