A normal mobile app keeps about 26% of new users on day 1, 13% on day 7 and 7% on day 30. Those are Adjust's medians across all verticals and platforms.
A good app retention rate is anything clearly above those numbers for your own category, platform and market.
Averages hide a lot. Day 1 retention ranges from 13% to 29% by vertical in the same Adjust data, and paid subscriber retention follows its own rules.
Below are the benchmarks, how to read them for your app, and real tests from our database that moved retention or the metrics next to it.
The average app retention rate and the range
Retention rate is the share of users who installed on a given day and came back on day N. Adjust counts a "day" as a 24-hour period after install, so day 1 retention means the user opened the app again 24 to 48 hours later.
Across all verticals, Adjust reports this curve:
| Day after install | All platforms | iOS | Android |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | 26% | 27% | 24% |
| Day 7 | 13% | 14% | 11% |
| Day 14 | 10% | 11% | 8% |
| Day 30 | 7% | 8% | 6% |
Source: Adjust, median retention rates.
The shape matters more than any single point.
About three quarters of new users are gone after the first day, and the curve flattens after day 7. That is why most retention work targets the first session and the first week.
To compute your own numbers the same way, use our retention rate calculator.
Keep cohorts by install date, and don't mix "returned on day 7" with "returned at any point in the first 7 days." The second number is always higher.
Retention benchmarks by category
Category drives retention more than anything else you can't control. Adjust's day 1 medians by vertical:
| Vertical | Day 1 retention |
|---|---|
| Gaming | 29% |
| Social | 29% |
| Health and fitness | 27% |
| Fintech | 22% |
| Utility | 21% |
| Entertainment | 20% |
| Shopping | 18% |
| Travel | 16% |
| Food and drink | 13% |
Source: Adjust, retention by vertical.
The low categories aren't failing. People open a travel or food app when they need it, finish the task and leave.
A food delivery app with 13% day 1 retention can be healthy if those users order again next week.
Day 30 shows the same spread. Braze's summary of AppsFlyer data, compiled by Business of Apps, puts day 30 retention between about 1% and 15% depending on category, with News at the top (15.3% on iOS) and Photo and Video at the bottom.
Subscription apps: retention of paying users
If you run a subscription app, install retention is only half the story.
The other half is how many paid subscriptions survive.
RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026, based on 2025 data, reports these median 12-month retention rates for paid subscriptions:
- Annual plans: 28% (down from 31% the year before)
- Monthly plans: 8% (down from 10%)
- Weekly plans: about 1%
The same report finds category spread is wide here too.
Annual retention reaches about 39% in Travel and sits near 25% in Social and Lifestyle.
AI-powered apps retain worse than other apps on every plan length, for example 21.1% vs. 30.7% on annual plans.
For churn on the paying side, see our subscription churn rate benchmarks.
Retention by platform: iOS vs Android
iOS users stick around a bit longer. In Adjust's medians, iOS beats Android by 3 points on day 1 (27% vs. 24%) and 2 points on day 30 (8% vs. 6%).
The AppsFlyer category data cited by Braze shows the same pattern, for example Finance at 6.6% on iOS vs. 3.1% on Android at day 30.
For paying subscribers the gap mostly disappears. RevenueCat found Google Play leads on first renewals for monthly and annual plans, iOS leads on weekly, and by the third renewal the two stores are within roughly 1 to 2 points of each other.
So compare each platform against its own benchmark.
A blended number shifts when your iOS and Android mix changes, even if nothing in the product did.
Retention by region and price point
Region
Adjust's day 1 medians by region run from 23% to 26%:
| Region | Day 1 | Day 7 | Day 30 |
|---|---|---|---|
| APAC | 26% | 12% | 6% |
| LATAM | 26% | 11% | 5% |
| Europe | 24% | 11% | 6% |
| MENA | 24% | 10% | 4% |
| North America | 23% | 10% | 5% |
Source: Adjust, retention by region.
North America has the lowest install retention, yet it is the most valuable market for subscriptions.
RevenueCat reports a median first renewal of 55% for monthly plans in North America and Western Europe, against 46% in India and Southeast Asia.
By the third renewal all regions sit within about 5 to 10 points of each other.
Price point
Cheaper plans keep more subscribers. In RevenueCat's 2026 data, year-one median retention for annual plans is 36% for low-priced apps, 26% for mid-priced and 23% for high-priced.
Access model matters much less: freemium (28%) and hard paywall (27%) apps retain about the same.
That doesn't mean you should cut prices. Higher-priced apps lose more people at the first renewal, but RevenueCat found the survivors renew at similar rates.
Judge price changes on revenue per user, not retention alone.
What a "good" retention rate means for your app
A benchmark tells you if you are in a normal range.
It doesn't tell you what to fix. Use it in this order:
- Pick the right comparison. Your category, your main platform and your main region. A meditation app should not compare itself with a mobile game.
- Find your drop-off point. Plot day 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30 for recent cohorts. A big gap between install and day 1 points at onboarding. A slow slide after day 7 points at the habit loop or at messaging.
- Match retention to your model. A subscription app with a hard paywall cares most about paid renewals. A freemium app needs free users to stay long enough to see the upgrade.
- Track your own trend. Beating last quarter's cohort is more useful than beating an industry median built from thousands of apps.
As a rough rule, day 1 above your category median and a curve that flattens by day 14 or 30 is a good sign.
A curve that keeps falling toward zero means the app isn't building a habit, whatever the day 1 number says.
Keep in mind that the first renewal is the biggest drop for subscribers.
RevenueCat notes that retention "breaks at commitment checkpoints," and that a churned annual subscriber rarely comes back: only about 5% reactivate within a year, against 20% for monthly plans.
How apps in our database moved their retention
Most subscription app tests in our database measure trial starts or revenue, not day 30 retention.
The ones below either report retention directly or move the metrics around it: activation, cancellations and win-backs.
Most are vendor-reported case studies from RevenueCat and Superwall.
Onboarding that sets up the habit
Applica rebuilt ASL Bloom's onboarding around the user's goal and added a two-screen paywall.
ASL Bloom saw +18% 30-day retention, along with +15% trial conversion and +12% ARPU.
It was a bundled change, so we can't credit one element.
Applica also rebuilt Five Minute Journal's onboarding on user research, for +20% ARPU, about +10% trial starts and +14% trial conversions.
Lose It! found that a longer onboarding with more questions raised trial starts by double digits.
More onboarding results are on our app onboarding page and in the app onboarding checklist.
Activation and fewer cancellations
Symmetry tested a Free vs Pro comparison table on its paywall.
Conversion rose 1% and paid user activation rose 5%, which suggests buyers understood what they were paying for.
A trial timeline paywall did something similar for Blinkist.
In the test Marcus Burke credits, trial opt-in rose significantly and trial cancellations fell 4%.
Telling users when they'll be charged didn't scare them off.
Win-backs and offers to lapsing users
Unscripted sent lapsed users a personal win-back trial offer and saw over +240% trial starts.
Lose It! moved offers into in-app messages and reported about 10x more money from them.
Not every change protects retention. When TalkingParents raised its price alongside a new feature, about a quarter of customers churned, but the business came out better financially.
That is a before-and-after comparison, not a controlled test.
Browse every result tagged retention in our app retention tests, see the strategies on app retention, or search all subscription app tests.
If you rely on win-back campaigns, our win-back tests collect them in one place.