Data study · 1,037,841 iOS apps · July 16, 2026
The iOS App Pricing Study 2026
We pulled the price and pricing model of every one of the 1,037,841 iOS apps we track — one snapshot, taken July 16, 2026 — to answer the pricing questions founders actually argue about. The short version: 80.82% of the store is free, 13.81% is freemium, and only 5.37% charges upfront — and the pricing decision that moves the needle isn't "$0.99 vs $2.99." It's "charge upfront vs free + in-app purchases," and the data comes down hard on one side.
Scope, stated plainly: this study covers (a) the pricing-model mix and (b) the upfront price distribution of paid apps. Our dataset has no in-app-purchase or subscription price field, so per-subscription pricing is out of scope — we never estimate it. Every revenue figure below is a transparent estimate generated by GetAppNiche's proprietary model, not an audited number. Data snapshot: July 16, 2026; updated daily. The full per-category table is free as a CSV — delivered by email.
The headline findings
Five things the data says
- Paid-upfront is nearly extinct — and underperforms anyway. Only 5.37% of the store (55,702 apps) charges an upfront price, and paid apps clear an estimated $1,000/month at just 2.03% — the worst rate of the three models — with the lowest median winner (est. $3,208/mo).
- Freemium is where the money is. 8.44% of freemium apps clear an estimated $1,000/month — ~6.8× the free rate and ~4.2× the paid rate — and freemium winners post the highest median, an estimated $5,786/month. Freemium is 13.81% of the store but supplies roughly half of all apps clearing est. $1k/mo.
- $0.99 is still the modal paid price, but not the median. 15,303 paid apps sit at $0.99 — the single most common price — yet the median paid app costs $2.99 and a quarter charge $4.99 or more (p25 $0.99 · median $2.99 · p75 $4.99).
- Pricing culture is set by category. Graphics & Design is 40.0% freemium and Photo & Video 29.5%, while Business, Food & Drink, and Shopping are ~92% plain free — storefronts and lead-gen, not products you buy. Stickers is the lone paid-first category: 78.6% paid, typically at $0.99.
- Upfront medians top out at $4.99. Business, Medical, and Music carry the highest median upfront price ($4.99); most consumer categories sit at $1.99–$2.99. There is no mass-market $9.99+ category — high prices live in the thin pro-tool tail.
The baseline
Pricing-model mix across 1,037,841 apps
| Model | Apps | Share of store |
|---|---|---|
| Free (free download, no paid model flagged) | 838,821 | 80.82% |
| Freemium (free download + in-app purchases) | 143,318 | 13.81% |
| Paid (upfront price) | 55,702 | 5.37% |
Source: GetAppNiche, July 16, 2026. Classification caveat: "Free" means the store/pipeline flagged no paid model — it includes ad-supported apps and some subscription apps whose IAPs aren't flagged. "Freemium" = free download with in-app purchases detected. "Paid" = upfront price. For what these models translate to in revenue odds, see free vs paid vs subscription apps.
What paid apps charge
Upfront price distribution — 55,702 paid apps
Among the 5.37% of the store that charges upfront: p25 $0.99 · median $2.99 · p75 $4.99. The classic $0.99 tier is still the single most common price — about 27% of all paid apps — but half of paid apps now cost $2.99 or more. The 15 most common price points:
| Upfront price | Paid apps |
|---|---|
| $0.99 | 15,303 |
| $1.99 | 9,930 |
| $2.99 | 6,557 |
| $4.99 | 5,310 |
| $3.99 | 3,853 |
| $9.99 | 2,732 |
| $5.99 | 1,502 |
| $19.99 | 1,289 |
| $6.99 | 1,231 |
| $7.99 | 983 |
| $14.99 | 769 |
| $0.29 | 758 |
| $12.99 | 744 |
| $8.99 | 673 |
| $29.99 | 450 |
Source: GetAppNiche, July 16, 2026 snapshot; 55,702 apps with an upfront price. The five sub-$5 tiers ($0.99–$4.99) account for 40,953 apps — roughly 73% of everything paid. A long thin tail runs through $9.99 (2,732 apps) to $19.99 and $29.99 — pro and professional tools. The odd one out, $0.29 (758 apps), is Apple's lowest price point from the expanded tiers introduced in 2023. Upfront prices only: in-app purchase and subscription prices are not in this dataset and are not estimated here.
The finding that matters
Earning rate by pricing model
The store-wide baseline: 23,712 apps — 2.28% of the 1,037,841 — clear an estimated $1,000/month. Split that by pricing model and the gap is the widest in this study:
| Model | Apps | Clear est. $1k/mo | Median winner (est./mo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freemium (free + IAP) | 143,318 | 8.44% | $5,786 |
| Paid (upfront) | 55,702 | 2.03% | $3,208 |
| Free | 838,821 | 1.25% | $4,071 |
Source: GetAppNiche analysis of 1,037,841 iOS App Store apps, July 16, 2026 snapshot. All revenue figures are estimates modeled from public App Store signals, not audited numbers. "Median winner" = the estimated monthly revenue of the median app among those clearing est. $1k/mo.
Read it twice: freemium clears est. $1,000/month at ~6.8× the free rate and ~4.2× the paid rate — and its winners earn the most, too. Paid-upfront loses on both axes: the lowest earning rate and the smallest median winner. Charging upfront filters out most of the funnel without a revenue payoff. So the pricing debate founders actually have — $0.99 or $2.99? — is the wrong debate. The decision that moves your estimated odds by multiples is charge upfront vs free + in-app purchases, and the data says free + IAP by a wide margin. For what those winners earn in absolute terms, see how much an app actually makes.
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Pricing culture by category
How every category charges — 25 categories, ≥3,000 apps
Each category has its own pricing culture, and it's visible in the splits. Freemium-heavy categories (Graphics & Design 40.0%, Photo & Video 29.5%, Health & Fitness 20.2%, Games 19.9%, Weather 19.8%) skew toward the model that earns; the ~92%-free giants (Business, Food & Drink, Shopping) are dominated by companion and lead-gen apps that were never meant to be sold.
| Category | Apps | Free | Freemium | Paid | Median paid price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business | 111,983 | 92.0% | 6.6% | 1.3% | $4.99 |
| Education | 110,531 | 78.4% | 13.2% | 8.4% | $3.99 |
| Utilities | 102,370 | 78.8% | 14.5% | 6.7% | $1.99 |
| Games | 83,173 | 74.4% | 19.9% | 5.7% | $2.99 |
| Lifestyle | 77,716 | 83.0% | 13.9% | 3.1% | $1.99 |
| Health & Fitness | 70,657 | 76.8% | 20.2% | 3.0% | $2.99 |
| Productivity | 62,770 | 76.5% | 17.6% | 5.9% | $2.99 |
| Food & Drink | 52,763 | 92.4% | 6.2% | 1.4% | $1.99 |
| Finance | 48,585 | 85.3% | 12.0% | 2.7% | $2.99 |
| Entertainment | 42,726 | 78.9% | 15.3% | 5.8% | $1.99 |
| Travel | 38,373 | 87.2% | 8.7% | 4.1% | $1.99 |
| Shopping | 38,001 | 92.4% | 7.1% | 0.5% | $2.99 |
| Sports | 31,059 | 82.3% | 12.5% | 5.2% | $2.99 |
| Photo & Video | 24,119 | 61.9% | 29.5% | 8.7% | $2.99 |
| Music | 23,753 | 72.6% | 14.4% | 13.0% | $4.99 |
| Social Networking | 22,113 | 85.9% | 12.3% | 1.8% | $1.99 |
| Medical | 20,833 | 83.6% | 9.6% | 6.8% | $4.99 |
| Reference | 19,049 | 71.9% | 16.7% | 11.4% | $3.99 |
| News | 12,409 | 86.1% | 12.6% | 1.3% | $2.49* |
| Navigation | 11,861 | 78.9% | 12.7% | 8.5% | $2.99 |
| Book | 10,920 | 76.6% | 14.1% | 9.2% | $3.79* |
| Graphics & Design | 7,506 | 51.1% | 40.0% | 8.8% | $2.99 |
| Stickers | 5,087 | 20.0% | 1.4% | 78.6% | $0.99 |
| Weather | 4,169 | 68.8% | 19.8% | 11.4% | $1.99 |
| Developer Tools | 3,635 | 63.4% | 17.0% | 19.6% | $2.99 |
Source: GetAppNiche, July 16, 2026 snapshot; categories with ≥3,000 tracked apps. *Medians are interpolated percentiles, not always exact store price tiers — News ($2.49) and Book ($3.79) fall between tiers. Stickers is the store's one paid-first category: 78.6% paid at a median $0.99 — a one-tap paid impulse buy. The highest upfront medians ($4.99) belong to Business, Medical, and Music. For which of these categories actually pays off, see the most profitable app categories in 2026 and the full State of iOS App Niches 2026 study.
Methodology
How these numbers were made
- Universe: 1,037,841 apps on the Apple App Store that GetAppNiche actively tracks, one snapshot taken July 16, 2026. Note the universe has grown: our July 9 study, State of iOS App Niches 2026, covered 744,876 apps; catalog adoption since then pushed the tracked set past one million. Shares between the two studies are comparable in direction, not to the decimal — the newer, larger universe includes more recently adopted long-tail apps.
- What we measure — and what we don't. The dataset
carries each app's upfront
priceand aprice_modelclassification. It has no in-app-purchase or subscription price field, so this study covers (a) pricing-model mix and (b) upfront price distribution only. Any "median subscription price" claim you see elsewhere is not something this dataset can support, and we don't make it. - Classification caveat. "Free" = free download with no paid model flagged — this bucket includes ad-supported apps and some subscription apps whose IAPs aren't flagged by the store metadata. "Freemium" = free download + in-app purchases detected. "Paid" = upfront price.
- Revenue is estimated, never reported. Apple publishes no per-app revenue. Every "clear an estimated $1,000/month" figure is modeled from public signals — review velocity, rating volume, price model, category — and is directional, not audited.
- Categories with under 3,000 apps are omitted from the per-category table for stability but remain in the 1,037,841 store-wide totals. Interpolated medians (News, Book) are marked with an asterisk.
- Scope: Apple App Store only, July 16, 2026 snapshot; the underlying dataset updates daily.
Deciding what to build before you decide how to price it? The free app niche finder surfaces niches by estimated revenue and winner density — pick the niche first, then set the model.
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iOS app pricing — quick answers
What percentage of iOS apps are free, freemium, or paid?
Across the 1,037,841 iOS apps we track (snapshot July 16, 2026), 80.82% are free downloads with no paid model flagged, 13.81% are freemium (free download with in-app purchases), and just 5.37% charge an upfront price. Note the classification caveat: 'Free' means no paid model was flagged, so it includes ad-supported apps and some apps with unflagged subscriptions.
What is the most common price for a paid iOS app?
$0.99 — 15,303 of the 55,702 paid apps in our July 16, 2026 snapshot, about 27% of everything charging upfront. But the median paid app costs $2.99, and a quarter of paid apps charge $4.99 or more (p25 $0.99, median $2.99, p75 $4.99). The tail runs through $9.99 (2,732 apps) up to $19.99 and $29.99 for pro tools.
Which app pricing model makes the most money?
Freemium, on both odds and size. In our July 16, 2026 snapshot of 1,037,841 iOS apps, 8.44% of freemium apps clear an estimated $1,000/month — versus 2.03% of paid-upfront apps and 1.25% of free apps — and freemium winners also post the highest median at an estimated $5,786/month. Paid-upfront is the worst model on both counts. All revenue figures are labeled estimates generated by GetAppNiche's proprietary model, not audited numbers.
Should I charge upfront for my iOS app or go free with in-app purchases?
The data leans hard toward free + in-app purchases: freemium apps clear an estimated $1,000/month at roughly 6.8× the rate of free apps and 4.2× the rate of paid-upfront apps (July 16, 2026 snapshot), and their median winner estimate ($5,786/mo) beats paid's ($3,208/mo). The main exception in the data is Stickers, where 78.6% of apps charge upfront, typically $0.99. These are estimated, category-level odds — not a guarantee for any single app.
Can I download the data?
Yes — free. Leave your email in the form at the end of this page and we'll send you the full per-category CSV: app count, free/freemium/paid shares, and the median upfront price for all 25 categories with at least 3,000 apps, from the July 16, 2026 snapshot. Requesting the file also adds you to our Monday niche-report list — unsubscribe anytime.