Subscription App Growth Is Getting Brutal (RevenueCat Data Explained)

Mar 14, 2026

David Barnard, Growth Advocate at RevenueCat and Sub Club host, breaks down RevenueCat’s massive subscription app benchmarks. He covers why legacy apps still dominate revenue, the split between runaway winners and shrinking apps, hard paywalls outperforming freemium, AI apps’ high revenue but poor retention, and the rising role of web-to-app funnels.

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ADVICE

Fix Google Play Billing Errors To Reduce Cancellations

On Google Play, address billing errors aggressively: enable Google's grace period and advanced retry settings to reduce ~31% of cancellations caused by billing.
Add in-app messaging and subscription management to mitigate billing churn.

ANECDOTE

Weather App Shrunk After Stopping Updates

David used his weather app as an example of a shrinking app after neglecting updates and ads.
The app dropped from $100k to $50k year-over-year due to lack of updates and promotion.

INSIGHT

AI Apps Earn More But Churn Faster

AI-first apps make more revenue per payer (≈41% higher) but churn faster and retain worse.
Many AI experiences are one-off or gimmicky (e.g., Studio Ghibli photo filters), so initial willingness to pay doesn't guarantee long-term retention.

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In this episode, we break down the 2026 State of Subscription Apps report from RevenueCat, one of the largest analyses of subscription app performance ever conducted.

We’re joined by David Barnard, Growth Advocate at RevenueCat, to unpack the key insights from the report.

The study analyzes 75,000+ apps and more than $11B in revenue across over a billion transactions, revealing what’s actually working in today’s subscription economy.

One of the most surprising findings: apps launched before 2020 still generate nearly 70% of all subscription revenue, even though thousands of new apps are launched every month.

If you’re building or growing a subscription app, these benchmarks will help you understand where you stand and which levers can truly move revenue.

You will discover:

✅ Why the top 25% of apps grew 80%+ while the bottom quartile shrank

✅ Why hard paywalls convert 5× better than freemium

✅ The surprising truth about AI apps: higher revenue but worse retention

✅ The growing importance of web-to-app funnels and web revenue

✅ Benchmark metrics like conversion rates, RPI, and retention

Learn More:

Connect with David:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbarnard/

State of Subscription Apps 2026:

https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps/?utm_source=appmasters&utm_medium=youtube

You can also watch this video here: ⁠⁠https://youtube.com/live/8Tk_EHQUeaY

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