2023 In-App Subscription Benchmarks: Top quartile apps performed 3-14x better than their peers

RevenueCat’s first in-depth in-app subscription benchmark report uncovers insights based on 20,000+ apps to help you make better decisions for your business in 2023

An unusual, record-breaking year for in-app subscriptions

As we look back on 2022, the mobile industry saw long expected regulatory changes take form, felt the impact of inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, and came back from the accelerated growth driven by the pandemic and its stay-at-home directives.

Though overall in-app revenues saw their first decline in history, non-gaming apps and subscriptions saw record spend in some of the most turbulent times the industry has experienced.

So how did in-app subscriptions continue to perform under these challenges circumstances?

Popping the lid on the world’s biggest in-app subscription data set

For the first time ever, we’re popping the lid on our treasure chest of subscription monetization data, to help you understand how subscriptions thrived in 2022:

• A rare and precious thing: Turning downloads into payers was challenging, with less than 2% of downloads converting to a paid subscriber
  
• Optimization pays off: Going from middling to best-in-class paid off in 2022, with top performers converting 14x as many downloads to subscribers
  
• High performers blow low performers out of the water: Across all subscription metrics, top quartile apps perform 3 to 14 times better than the bottom quartile of applications

In addition to unique data, this new report features insights and advice from some of the world’s most successful app developers and app growth practitioners, including:

• Sylvain Gauchet, Director of Revenue Strategy at Babbel and Founder of Growth Gems
• Caleb Appleton, SVP & GM of Global Subscriptions at TuneIn
• Ron Schneidermann, CEO of AllTrails
• Eric Seufert, Editor of Mobile Dev Memo and Investor at Heracles Capital
• Matthieu Rouif, Co-Founder and CEO at PhotoRoom

And many, many others.

In 2023, kick off a year of unprecedented growth by targeting the upper quartile in performance where it matters. Through our State of Subscription Apps 2023 report, you’ll know exactly what success looks like. Know what your goals are? Join our Sub Club community to learn, discuss, and ideate with other subscription growth practitioners.

In 2023, make better decisions, informed by our State of Subscription Apps report

Read the world’s most comprehensive report on in-app subscription performance to date, covering every metric that matters, spanning categories and geographies for everything from indies to the world’s biggest subscription businesses. This ungated (no email necessary!) report features:

• Activation rates
  for those with a pure trial strategy as well as those with a mixed strategy
• Paid conversion rates
  split down to trial length
• Renewal rates
  for weekly, monthly, and yearly subscriptions and the first, second, and third renewal
• Retention over time
  per subscription duration

Want even more insights? Download our extended 59 page PDF report and receive additional benchmarks per category, specifically for:

• Health & Fitness
• Utilities
• Productivity
• Photo & Video
• Lifestyle

Still haven’t seen or heard enough? Join me and David Bernard for a special Sub Club episode where we talk through the findings of the report:

We hope you find as much value in reading this unique report as we did in producing it.