The typical push notification opt-in rate is about 50%.
Airship's 2026 benchmark report, based on 2025 data from thousands of apps, puts the median at 53.3% on Android and 48.85% on iOS.
The range is wide, though: top apps clear 85%, and the weakest sit below 25%.
Below are the numbers by category and platform, what changed when Android started asking for permission, how to set a target for your own app, and what the tests in our database say about raising yours.
The average push opt-in rate and the range
Opt-in rate is the share of your app's users who have granted permission to receive push notifications.
Airship measures it as a monthly figure averaged over 12 months, and only counts apps with at least 1,000 active users that send push regularly.
Here is how the median has moved in Airship's last three reports:
| Data year | Android median | iOS median | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 71.3% | 49.1% | Airship 2025 report |
| 2024 | 59.5% | 49.4% | Airship 2025 report |
| 2025 | 53.3% | 48.85% | Airship 2026 report |
iOS has held steady at just under half.
Android fell about 18 points in two years.
Older articles that quote Android opt-in rates near 90% describe a world that no longer exists.
The spread matters more than the median. In the 2024 data, Airship's 90th percentile was 79.7% on Android and 74.1% on iOS, and the 10th percentile was 37.1% and 27.1%.
So a 45% iOS rate is close to normal, while 25% puts you in the bottom tenth.
Other vendors report higher figures. Pushwoosh says opt-in ranges from 23% to 92% depending on platform and industry.
Each vendor measures its own customer base, so compare your app to one source at a time, not a blend.
Push opt-in rate by category
Category explains a lot of the spread. Users accept push when the message is something they want to know right away: a payment, a delivery, a class reminder. They refuse it when they expect promotions.
Airship's 2026 report highlights these extremes:
- Education on iOS: 88.7% at the 90th percentile, the highest iOS figure in the report.
- Utility and productivity on Android: 86.63% at the 90th percentile.
- Finance and insurance on iOS: even the 10th percentile reaches 44.68%, close to the overall iOS median.
- Charities and non-profits on Android: a 10th percentile of 51.25%.
- Retail on iOS: 18.1% at the 10th percentile, the lowest iOS floor.
- Gambling and gaming on Android: 21.35% at the 10th percentile.
Pushwoosh's 2025 benchmarks show the same pattern with different numbers:
| Industry (Pushwoosh) | iOS opt-in | Android opt-in |
|---|---|---|
| Business | 79.87% | 90.07% |
| Banking | 74.62% | 75.79% |
| Insurance | 70.50% | 91.63% |
| Streaming | 39.58% | 64.88% |
| Hypercasual games | 23.01% | 69.03% |
Source: Pushwoosh, push opt-in benchmarks. Pushwoosh's benchmark study covers over 600 apps.
Most subscription apps fall in the middle. Fitness, language learning, meditation and habit apps have a clear reason to send reminders, which helps.
Photo editors, AI tools and utilities that people open on demand have a weaker case and should expect lower rates.
iOS vs Android push opt-in rates
The two platforms now work almost the same way, which is why the gap has closed to under five points.
iOS has always been opt-in. Apple's documentation says that the first time an app requests authorization, the system shows the prompt and records the answer.
Later requests don't prompt again. A "Don't Allow" can only be reversed by the user in Settings.
iOS also offers provisional authorization. The app gets permission without a prompt, and its notifications arrive quietly in Notification Center, with no sound, banner or lock-screen alert.
Each one carries Keep and Turn Off buttons.
Apple's docs note that people may reject a prompt simply because they haven't seen a notification yet, and provisional delivery lets them judge first.
Be careful how you count these users: quiet delivery is not the same as a full opt-in.
Android changed with Android 13 (API level 33), which added the POST_NOTIFICATIONS runtime permission.
According to Android's developer guide, notifications are off by default for new installs on Android 13 or higher until the user grants permission.
Two details explain why the Android average fell gradually instead of overnight:
- When a device upgrades to Android 13, the system pre-grants permission to eligible apps that already had a notification channel and weren't blocked by the user.
- Apps targeting Android 12L or lower get the prompt automatically on first launch. If the user taps "Don't allow," even once, they aren't asked again until they reinstall or the app updates its target.
As older devices and pre-granted installs age out, Android rates should keep drifting toward iOS.
If your Android number is far above your iOS number, check how many of your Android users are on older OS versions.
By region and price point
We couldn't find a current, public benchmark that breaks push opt-in rates down by country or by app price, and neither Airship's nor Pushwoosh's latest report includes one.
Older regional studies date from before Android 13, so we've left their numbers out.
What you can do is control for the factors that differ by market:
- Platform mix. A market with mostly Android users on older OS versions will show a higher blended rate. Always split your number by platform before comparing countries.
- Language. A primer or prompt context written in English for a non-English market will explain the value less well. Our database shows how much localization can matter elsewhere in the funnel: Photoroom saw +50% upsell screen conversion from localized upsell paywalls.
- Paid vs free users. Users who paid, or started a trial, have shown intent, and many subscription apps ask for push right after the trial starts for that reason. Report opt-in for trial users and free users separately so one group doesn't hide the other.
What a good push opt-in rate means for your app
A good push notification opt-in rate is one above the median for your category and platform, measured the same way the benchmark does.
Use these rough bands for iOS, based on Airship's 2024 percentiles:
- Below about 27%: bottom tenth. Look at when and how you ask.
- Around 49%: typical.
- Around 74% or more: top tenth.
Android bands were higher in 2024 (37.1%, 59.5% and 79.7%) but are falling, so treat the 2025 median of 53.3% as the better reference point.
Before you compare, check three things:
- The denominator. Are you dividing by all installs, all monthly active users, or only users who saw the prompt? Prompt acceptance rates run much higher than the share of all users who are opted in.
- Provisional users. Decide whether iOS provisional authorizations count. Report them separately.
- Time. Opt-in decays as users turn notifications off in Settings. A rate measured on day 1 will look better than a 12-month average.
Push permission is one of several asks in a new user's first session.
If your app also requests tracking, compare with our ATT opt-in rate benchmarks, and look at app retention benchmarks to see what the opted-in users are worth.
How apps in the database moved theirs
A frank note first: our database doesn't yet hold a clean A/B test of the push permission prompt itself.
What it does hold is a set of subscription-app tests on onboarding, timing and messaging, the same levers that decide whether a user says yes.
Airship's own research points the same way: its 2025 report says apps running onboarding campaigns see opt-in rates as high as 40% above their category average, and in-app messages lift opt-in by 14% on average among opted-out users (both vendor-reported).
Build the reason before you ask
Lose It! made onboarding longer, with more questions, and trial start rate rose by double digits.
ASL Bloom's goal-based onboarding, built by Applica, brought +15% trial conversion and +18% 30-day retention.
Users who have just set a goal have a reason to want reminders.
That's the moment to show a permission primer, not the first launch.
Tie push to a promise the user cares about
Blinkist's trial timeline paywall told users up front what would happen and when during the trial.
It produced a significant rise in trial opt-in and 4% fewer trial cancellations (test credited to Marcus Burke).
A reminder before the trial ends is one of the few notifications users expect, so it gives a clear, honest reason to ask for permission right after the trial starts.
Reach the users who said no
Half your users won't opt in, so plan for them.
Lose It! showed offers as in-app messages and made about 10x more money, a channel that needs no push permission.
In-app messages can also re-ask opted-out users later, which is how Airship's 14% lift is measured.
Make opted-in users count
Opt-in only matters if you use it well.
Unscripted's personal win-back trial offer drove over +240% trial starts (vendor-reported in a Superwall case study).
Wizz showed fewer offers at better moments and saw +81% on the primary offer flow.
Fewer, better-timed messages keep users from turning notifications back off.
For the full playbook on prompts, copy and frequency, read our push notification guide, browse push notification tests and win-back tests, or compare push notification tools.
Every subscription-app result is in our app test database.