State of iOS App Revenue 2026
What iOS apps really earn — measured across 1,059,410 tracked apps and a 12,558-app verified-data layer, recomputed nightly. The short version: the App Store is far more unequal than most founders assume.
How many iOS apps actually make money?
As of July 2026, 52% of the 1,059,410 iOS apps Appdex tracks show no meaningful App Store revenue. Of the rest, most sit in the long tail of small earners. Only 4,308 apps (0.4%) clear an estimated $100k/month, and fewer than 800 apps clear $1M/month.
How concentrated is App Store revenue?
The top 1% of earning apps capture an estimated 51.1% of all App Store revenue. The top 0.1% alone capture 39.9%. For a founder this cuts both ways: the average outcome is bleak, but category medians among apps that do monetize are far healthier than the averages suggest.
What do successful apps make, by category?
Among the 12,558 apps in our verified-data layer (real reported figures, not modeled guesses — combined $6.2B/month), the median commercially-active app makes $40k/month. The standout: Productivity has the highest category median at $90k/month — higher than Games — even though Games' total pie is 4.5× larger.
| Category | Median /mo | Category total /mo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Games | $70k | $2.36B | |
| Entertainment | $60k | $1.05B | |
| Photo & Video | $50k | $0.58B | |
| Productivity | $90k | $0.52B | |
| Social Networking | $40k | $0.27B | |
| Music | $30k | $0.25B | |
| Lifestyle | $30k | $0.20B | |
| Education | $30k | $0.17B | |
| Health & Fitness | $40k | $0.17B | |
| Business | $30k | $0.14B | |
| Books | $30k | $0.13B | |
| Utilities | $30k | $0.11B |
Medians are computed within the verified layer (apps with real reported revenue above $1k/mo), so they describe commercially active apps — not the average app in the store.
What it takes to reach the top
In Games, the top 10% of verified earners clear $1M/month; in Productivity and Photo & Video, $800k/month. In quieter categories like Lifestyle, the top-decile bar is $200k/month — a reminder that "top of category" means very different things depending on where you build.
Appdex tracks 1,059,410 iOS apps and recomputes revenue & download estimates nightly. Figures in this report come from two layers: catalog-wide distribution shares (estimates, each carrying a confidence range) and a 12,558-app verified-data layer of real reported figures used for category medians. Where a number is an estimate, we say so. Snapshot date: July 8, 2026. Cite as: "per Appdex, July 2026" with a link to this page.