iOS Apps: The State of Subscriptions in 2025

Adapty published what might be the most data-rich report on mobile subscriptions this year - covering $1.9 billion in revenue from over 11,000 apps. Whether you're building a subscription-based iOS app or just curious about the economics, it's worth reading in full.

Read the full report on Adapty

What stood out to me

The subscription model has spread further than I expected. I knew it was big; the surprise is the scale. It's well past media and productivity now - fitness, education, dating, even utilities - and the long tail keeps growing.

"Subscription fatigue" gets a lot of airtime, but the numbers don't really back it up. Trial-to-paid holds up when the trial length matches how fast the app earns its keep. Seven days works for something useful on day one; a longer trial makes sense when the user needs time to build a habit.

Pricing is getting simpler too. Most successful apps land on two or three tiers and drop the feature matrix for a plain good / better / best. Weekly billing is growing in a few categories like fitness and dating, while annual plans still carry the revenue for productivity tools.

The point that matters most is the least glamorous. Acquisition gets the attention, but the report is blunt about retention: shaving even a couple of points off churn beats most acquisition gains. Grace periods, win-back campaigns, and price localization are the levers that actually move it.

For developers building subscription apps

If you're weighing a subscription model for your own app, the report gives you real benchmarks for pricing, trial length, and conversion by category. It's numbers instead of opinions, which already puts it ahead of most advice in this space.