Which App Store trends are making money now?

Has App Store spending really shifted away from games?

Yes. Non-game apps now take more consumer spending than mobile games, and that is one of the biggest changes happening in the App Store economy.

Sensor Tower's latest State of Mobile report estimated worldwide App Store and Google Play in-app purchases at about $167 billion in 2025, up 10% in a year. For the first time, consumers spent more on non-game apps than on games. Non-game spending grew 21% and was almost three times its level five years earlier.

Mobile gaming is still enormous. Sensor Tower puts annual game IAP revenue at roughly $82 billion, so games have hardly disappeared. The difference is growth. Gaming revenue barely moved while AI, social, video, productivity and short-drama apps added billions of dollars in new spending.

That changes where we should look for new opportunities. Five years ago, someone searching the App Store for large consumer-spending categories would have started with games almost automatically. Today, several of the fastest-growing money pools sit outside gaming.

App economy	Approx. annual IAP revenue	Current direction
Non-game apps	~$85B	Growing quickly
Mobile games	~$82B	Roughly flat
Total	~$167B	+10% YoY

Is AI the biggest App Store money trend right now?

Yes. Generative AI is currently the clearest new source of App Store spending, and the category has already grown far beyond the experimental stage.

Sensor Tower estimates that generative-AI apps went from less than $60 million of quarterly mobile revenue in early 2023 to about $1.9 billion in Q1 2026. That is more than 30 times as much in three years.

The pace has stayed unusually high. Sensor Tower expected global AI-app IAP revenue to pass $4 billion during the first half of 2026, 36% above the previous six months. For comparison, the entire category generated around $1.3 billion during all of 2024.

ChatGPT accounts for a huge share of that spending, but the market is getting broader. Sensor Tower found that Claude's U.S. mobile revenue per user rose from below $0.50 in September 2025 to $2.76 by May 2026. Gemini, Claude and other assistants have also gained share while ChatGPT's share of the AI-assistant audience slipped below 50% for the first time in March 2026.

More than 200,000 apps now mention AI in their store descriptions. That last number says as much about competition as opportunity. AI is generating billions of dollars, but developers are piling into it at the same time.

Are AI wrapper apps actually good businesses?

Many AI apps make money quickly today, but the retention numbers are much weaker than the revenue headlines suggest.

RevenueCat's current subscription study covers more than 115,000 apps and over $16 billion of revenue. AI apps generate a median $30.16 in realized first-year revenue per payer, versus $21.37 for non-AI apps. That is a 41% premium.

They also convert more easily at the beginning. Median trial starts reach 8.5% compared with 5.6% for non-AI apps, while download-to-paid conversion is 2.4% versus 2.0%.

Then people leave.

After 12 months, monthly AI subscriptions retain only 6.1% of subscribers at the median, compared with 9.5% for non-AI apps. Annual retention is 21.1% versus 30.7%. Refunds run higher too, at 4.2% versus 3.5%.

Those gaps change how we should read the AI boom. A chatbot wrapper, headshot generator or one-purpose image app can get people to pay because the result sounds impressive. Keeping those people after the curiosity wears off is much harder.

The safer AI business today is tied to a job users repeat. Think about editing videos every week, preparing sales calls, studying for an exam or processing work documents. The AI can be central to how the product works without being the only reason somebody opens it.

Is short drama really making serious App Store money?

Yes. Short-drama apps are now generating roughly three-quarters of a billion dollars in IAP every quarter.

Sensor Tower measured about $750 million of short-drama app revenue in Q1 2026, up 20% in a year. DramaBox and ReelShort alone each produced close to $140 million during the quarter.

The audience has become enormous. Global short-drama downloads passed 850 million in the same quarter, up 140% year over year. Six short-drama apps were among the world's 40 most downloaded apps, with FreeReels reaching No. 8.

Usage is also becoming habitual. Sensor Tower found that average daily time spent in short-drama apps had reached about 25 minutes globally by April 2026, up 85% from January 2025. Users were spending nearly six times more total time in the category than a year earlier.

There is one clear warning in the numbers. Downloads grew 140% while revenue grew only 20%. Revenue generated per new download therefore fell sharply as growth moved toward Southeast Asia, Latin America and India, which together supplied more than three quarters of global downloads.

Short drama is making real money now. It is also turning into a serious media business where publishers need constant content, paid acquisition, localization and strong monetization rather than a clever app shell.

Are Health & Fitness apps better businesses than most AI apps?

Health & Fitness currently has some of the strongest subscription economics anywhere in the App Store.

RevenueCat's latest benchmarks put median Health & Fitness revenue per install at about $0.66 after 60 days, the highest level among the major categories it tracks. Gaming sits around $0.14.

The category also converts well. Roughly 2.9% of downloads become paying users at the median, and trial-to-paid conversion is around 37.7%. Median first-year realized revenue per payer reaches $35.64.

People are also willing to make longer commitments. Annual plans are common, and RevenueCat finds Health & Fitness among the categories with the strongest yearly renewal rates.

The logic shows up in actual products. Nutrition apps such as MyFitnessPal, women's-health apps such as Flo, running products, fasting trackers and workout programs all serve needs that can come back every day or every week. A customer trying to lose 10 kilograms has a very different relationship with an app from someone generating one AI profile picture.

Health & Fitness does not have AI's current hype, but the underlying economics are extremely good.

Subscription category	Median D60 revenue/install	Median Y1 revenue/payer
Health & Fitness	~$0.66	$35.64
Business	~$0.50	$35.48
Productivity	—	$24.95
Education	—	$22.82
Gaming	~$0.14	$11.22

Are Business apps one of the best App Store opportunities right now?

Yes. Business apps are much less visible than consumer hits, but the people who find a useful one tend to be valuable customers.

RevenueCat finds Business apps have a median download-to-trial rate of 9.1%, one of the strongest numbers in its dataset. Median revenue per install reaches roughly $0.50 after 60 days, behind Health & Fitness but well ahead of many consumer categories.

First-year realized revenue per payer is $35.48 at the median. Top-quartile Business apps exceed roughly $69, while the strongest products go above $120 per payer.

The category is slower, though. RevenueCat estimates a median Business subscription app takes around 113 days to reach $1,000 in monthly revenue. Some consumer categories get there much faster.

For a founder, that slower start can be perfectly acceptable. An electrician, landlord, salon owner, delivery company, real-estate agent or small medical practice may pay every month for scheduling, quotations, inspections, scanning, inventory, documentation or compliance.

A Business app therefore does not need millions of users. Twenty thousand customers paying $100 a year already create a $2 million subscription business.

That kind of arithmetic is easy to overlook when the App Store rankings are dominated by products built for hundreds of millions of people.

Is productivity still making money now that every app has AI?

Yes. Productivity is still making money, but generic AI productivity apps are getting crowded incredibly fast.

RevenueCat classifies roughly 41% of Productivity subscription apps as AI-powered. Only Photo & Video has a higher concentration.

The category still produces a median $24.95 in first-year realized revenue per payer. Monthly subscriptions also represent an unusually large share of Productivity revenue, which suggests users are comfortable treating good productivity tools as ongoing services.

The strongest products tend to own a repeated workflow. Canva is used whenever somebody needs to design something. CapCut comes back whenever somebody edits a video. Scanners, document tools, note-taking products and specialized professional apps can work in the same way.

A generic assistant has a harder pitch these days. Users already have ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and AI features built into software they were using before the current boom.

The more attractive products use AI to make an existing task noticeably faster. When users describe the product by what it helps them accomplish rather than by the model underneath it, the proposition usually looks stronger.

Can Education apps still make money when students have ChatGPT?

Yes. Education remains a strong paid-app category because learning requires much more than getting an answer to a question.

RevenueCat puts the median annual Education subscription at about $44.99, one of the highest category medians in its current dataset. Trial starts are also healthy, at around 6.5% of downloads.

Duolingo shows how large the model can become. In its latest quarterly results, the company said daily active users were still growing 23% year over year. Duolingo also remains the top-grossing Education app on both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Its success makes the distinction clearer. ChatGPT can explain Spanish verb conjugation in seconds. Duolingo gives users a sequence, exercises, repetition, progression, reminders, history and a reason to return tomorrow.

The same logic applies to exam preparation, children's learning, professional certifications and specialized skills. Information has become cheap. Structured progress is still something people pay for.

An app offering little more than “ask an AI tutor anything” has a much weaker position now because the general AI assistants can already do that job.

Are photo and video apps still making money after the AI explosion?

Yes. Photo and video apps still make serious money, although one-off AI effects tend to lose customers quickly.

RevenueCat finds that 61.4% of Photo & Video subscription apps are now AI-powered, by far the highest share of any category. AI has effectively become a normal part of the product.

The monetization problem appears after installation. Photo & Video has a relatively weak trial-to-paid conversion rate of about 22%, and retention trails stronger categories such as Business and Health & Fitness.

That pattern makes sense when we look at the products themselves. Someone might happily subscribe to create wedding photos, restore an old image, generate LinkedIn headshots or make an avatar, then cancel as soon as the job is finished.

Products built around repeated creation have better reasons to survive. Video editing, design, storage, publishing and team content production can happen every week.

AI has expanded what Photo & Video apps can sell, but it has also filled the stores with products whose useful life for one customer may last only an afternoon.

Are dating apps still making money today?

Yes. Dating remains a huge mobile business, but the money is moving between products rather than lifting the whole category equally.

Match Group generated about $3.4 billion of direct customer revenue in 2025 across its dating portfolio. The company's overall payer count fell 5%, which shows how mature the category has become.

Hinge has been moving in the opposite direction from several older brands. Match Group reported 26% year-over-year Hinge direct-revenue growth in Q4 2025, alongside strong international user growth. In its European expansion markets, Hinge became the most downloaded dating app by the end of 2025.

That makes dating a useful example of what still works in mature App Store categories. People have not stopped paying for dating. They have become more selective about which products deserve their time and money.

A new dating app therefore needs a very specific reason to exist: a community, an intention, a geography or a different interaction model. Another generic swipe app would be entering an old market without giving users much reason to move.

Are mobile games still a good way to make money on the App Store?

Mobile games still make around $82 billion a year from in-app purchases, but the category is much tougher for a small developer than that number suggests.

Sensor Tower measured only about 1% IAP revenue growth for mobile gaming in 2025. The market has reached a stage where established games can keep earning huge amounts through live events, new content, battle passes, collaborations and aggressive user acquisition even when total category growth is weak.

Subscription economics also look very different from Health & Fitness or Business. RevenueCat puts median 60-day subscription revenue per install for Gaming at around $0.14, compared with $0.66 for Health & Fitness.

Successful games can make up for that with enormous audiences, advertising and consumable purchases. But all three require scale.

For a small team searching for a straightforward subscription business, the current numbers make specialist utilities, fitness products or professional apps easier to justify. Gaming can still produce massive winners; the operating model simply asks much more from the developer.

Do hard paywalls and annual subscriptions actually make more money?

Yes. Apps that ask users to pay early and push annual plans currently generate much more revenue per install.

RevenueCat finds that hard-paywall apps convert 10.7% of downloads to paying users within 35 days at the median. Freemium apps convert only 2.1%. That is roughly a fivefold difference.

The revenue gap is even larger early on. Hard-paywall apps produce about $2.32 of median revenue per install after 14 days and $3.09 after 60 days. Freemium apps sit around $0.27 and $0.38.

Annual plans also outperform shorter plans on early revenue. Apps where yearly subscriptions dominate reach roughly $0.46 per install after 60 days, compared with about $0.24 for monthly-dominant apps and $0.09 for weekly-dominant ones.

There is a useful limit to this finding. After one year, freemium and hard-paywall apps have almost identical retention. Charging earlier gets more people across the payment line; it does not magically make the product useful for longer.

That pushes the focus back to the first session. RevenueCat found that 55% of cancellations for three-day trials happen on day one. If users cannot quickly understand why the app is worth paying for, changing the paywall will only go so far.

Monetization model	Key current benchmark
Hard paywall download-to-paid	10.7%
Freemium download-to-paid	2.1%
Hard paywall D60 revenue/install	$3.09
Freemium D60 revenue/install	$0.38
Annual-first D60 revenue/install	$0.46
Monthly-first D60 revenue/install	$0.24
Weekly-first D60 revenue/install	$0.09

Does iOS still make much more money than Android?

Yes. An iOS download is currently far more likely to become a paying subscription than an Android download.

RevenueCat's latest dataset puts median download-to-paid conversion at 2.6% on iOS versus 0.9% on Android. That is almost a threefold difference.

The surprising part comes one step later. Among users who actually start a trial, conversion is virtually identical: 32.6% on iOS and 32.5% on Android.

So most of the gap happens before the trial. Android users are much less likely to enter the paid funnel in the first place.

Billing also hurts Android more. Roughly 31% of Google Play subscription cancellations are caused by involuntary billing failures, more than twice the App Store rate.

For a small subscription company testing whether consumers will pay, iOS is still the easier environment today. Android becomes more attractive once the product already works and the business wants additional scale.

Where in the world do App Store subscriptions make the most money?

North American downloads are still dramatically easier to monetize than downloads from India and Southeast Asia.

RevenueCat puts median download-to-paid conversion at roughly 2.8% in North America. Across India and Southeast Asia, it is about 0.7%. That is a fourfold gap before we even discuss price.

This helps explain some apparently contradictory App Store trends. Short-drama apps can add hundreds of millions of downloads in Southeast Asia, Latin America and India while revenue rises much more slowly. Those users are real and engaged; they simply monetize very differently from North American users.

The difference also affects how we should judge an app's growth. One hundred thousand highly targeted U.S. downloads can be worth more to a paid subscription business than one million downloads coming from countries with much lower conversion.

Geography therefore belongs in the business model from the beginning. “One million downloads” tells us almost nothing about whether an app is making good money until we know where those downloads came from and how many people paid.

Are successful apps starting to move customers onto the web?

Yes. Web acquisition and web checkout are becoming much more common among the strongest subscription apps.

RevenueCat finds that 41% of its top-tier subscription apps now generate at least some revenue through the web. Among hobby-tier apps, the figure is only 1.3%.

That 31-fold gap does not prove that web billing causes success. Bigger apps naturally have more resources to build additional funnels. Still, the pattern tells us how mature app companies increasingly operate.

A customer may first see an advertisement, complete a quiz or onboarding flow in a browser, subscribe there and then use the mobile app every day. This gives the company more control over attribution, pricing, payment options and the relationship with the customer.

The App Store still matters enormously for discovery, trust and product distribution. What is changing is the idea that the App Store has to contain the entire business.

For companies with enough volume, the app is increasingly one part of a wider acquisition and monetization system.

Is AI making it easier to build a profitable App Store business?

AI has made launching an app much easier, while getting that app to meaningful revenue remains brutally difficult.

RevenueCat counted roughly 2,000 new subscription-app launches per month in early 2022. The number has since risen to around 14,700 per month.

That is more than a sevenfold increase in new supply.

Most of the money has stayed with older products. Apps launched before 2020 still collect 69% of subscription revenue in RevenueCat's dataset. Apps launched in 2025 or later account for only about 3%.

The odds of breaking through are also sobering. Only 4.6% of newly launched subscription apps reach $10,000 in monthly revenue within their first two years.

AI coding tools help explain part of the supply explosion. A founder can now build a tracker, scanner, document app, chatbot or photo tool far faster than a few years ago. Unfortunately, competitors have exactly the same advantage.

Distribution, reputation, customer understanding and retention now do more of the separating. Building the software itself is increasingly the easy part.

Which App Store trends are actually making money now?

AI is the fastest-growing money trend in the App Store today, but Health & Fitness and Business apps currently offer some of the most attractive economics for a smaller developer.

Generative-AI apps have gone from less than $60 million of quarterly mobile revenue to around $1.9 billion in three years. That growth is extraordinary. The weakness is retention: AI subscribers leave substantially faster than non-AI subscribers across weekly, monthly and annual plans.

Short drama is the other big newcomer. Roughly $750 million of quarterly IAP confirms that the category has become a real business. Its 140% download growth against only 20% revenue growth also tells us that the economics are getting harder as expansion moves into lower-monetizing countries.

Health & Fitness looks much less spectacular from the outside, yet its median 60-day revenue per install reaches about $0.66 and first-year revenue per payer is roughly $35.64. Business apps produce almost the same payer value, at $35.48, while solving problems for customers who can justify paying from the value they get at work.

Education, specialist Productivity and recurring Photo & Video workflows remain attractive for the same reason: users have a clear reason to come back.

The monetization data also gives us a good picture of what works around those categories. iOS still converts far better than Android. Hard paywalls produce much higher early revenue when the value is immediately obvious. Annual subscriptions generally produce better revenue per install. Stronger app companies increasingly use the web alongside the App Store rather than depending on one acquisition funnel.

The hardest number to ignore is the supply growth. Nearly 15,000 new subscription apps are now launching each month, yet 69% of subscription revenue still belongs to apps launched before 2020. As we saw above, fewer than one in twenty new subscription apps reaches $10,000 in monthly revenue within two years.

So the trends making money now are clear: generative AI, short drama, Health & Fitness, Business software, Education and specialized productivity all have strong evidence behind them. The better opportunity for a new developer is usually where a current spending trend overlaps with a problem people face repeatedly. That combination has a much better chance of surviving after the initial download spike disappears.

Trend	Evidence of money now	Main problem
Generative AI	~$1.9B quarterly IAP; >30× growth in three years	Weak retention
Short drama	~$750M quarterly IAP	Monetization lagging download growth
Health & Fitness	~$0.66 median D60 revenue/install	Competitive acquisition
Business apps	~$35.48 median Y1 revenue/payer	Slower early growth
Education	Strong annual pricing and large scaled winners	Generic AI tutoring is easy to copy
Productivity	~$24.95 median Y1 revenue/payer	Generic products are crowded
Photo & Video	Large creator businesses and heavy AI adoption	Many use cases are one-off
Dating	Billions in existing customer revenue	Mature category with uneven growth
Mobile gaming	~$82B annual IAP	Scale and live operations required