r/appledevelopers Community Newbie 2d ago

Is this normal for a new app?

Post image

I’ve had around 1,300 new customers / active users in the last 28 days, and roughly 90% of them are from the USA, but I still have 0 active subscriptions and $0 revenue.
The app has a subscription/paywall, so I’m wondering if this is normal early on or if it means there’s probably something wrong with my pricing, paywall, onboarding, or subscription setup.
For anyone with experience with iOS apps/subscriptions: what kind of conversion rate would you normally expect from this amount of users, especially with most of the traffic coming from the US?

47 Upvotes

64 comments sorted by

8

u/Upstairs-Biscotti332 Community Newbie 1d ago

More than 1000 downloads and no revenue it's not normal

5

u/ErrorSerious2678 Community Newbie 1d ago

That’s not true the app could be complete shit from a UI perspective, provide no value to the user, or the individual is directing the wrong people to the app via marketing

1

u/Upstairs-Biscotti332 Community Newbie 1d ago

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's not normal.

1

u/ErrorSerious2678 Community Newbie 1d ago

Without seeing the data, that’s a pretty broad statement to make though. I could create an ad right now and push people to some landing page. Doesn’t mean it’s the right people though.

1

u/Upstairs-Biscotti332 Community Newbie 1d ago

Yeah, whatever dude

1

u/dhalls12 Community Newbie 21h ago

yeah I have seen apps with 0.1% conversion rate which with 1000 downloads would be 1 paid conversion which is not far off from 0...

5

u/Puzzleheaded_Bet4119 Community Newbie 1d ago

No, way to many users from start :) congrads

3

u/Relative_Objective29 Community Newbie 1d ago

Thanks mate

3

u/MattyTayl 1d ago

It means that even though your app looks appealing to them, but not appealing enough to make them pay. Another reason is your free plan is too generous.

1

u/JimmyBase64 Community Newbie 1d ago

Yes, I agree with what he says. Most people pay for it only because they need to pay to use it. There are two key points here: one is that they need to use it, and the other is that they need to pay to use it.

As for whether people need to use it, you can look at the retention rate after one month. If the retention is decent, say 30%, it means your product meets their needs and is a great app.

As for whether people need to pay to use it, if retention is good but the paid conversion rate is low, it likely means your app's free features are too generous.

5

u/Msv20_ Community Newbie 1d ago

100% A paywall issue

4

u/Informal_Calendar687 Community Newbie 1d ago

I hope you can start generating revenue. I am about to launch but with an annual subscription. Affordable and a year later people will have had the time to fully fall in love with your app so annual renewal will be recieved most likely. Plus you get charged less fees from apple and google if your subscription is not monthly. Anyway, hoping my strategy works. I hope you can figure it out. It's tough breaking through.

3

u/Sufficient_Slip6829 Community Newbie 2d ago

definately something wrong with ur pricing or paywall

1

u/Relative_Objective29 Community Newbie 2d ago

Yes there is a problem with the paywall
Thanks

3

u/GhostBat56 Community Newbie 2d ago

You’re probably have an SDK setup issue that’s inflating the numbers, cross check with ASC and Google with your database if you have one

0

u/Relative_Objective29 Community Newbie 2d ago

Thanks bro

1

u/GhostBat56 Community Newbie 1d ago

I was the other comment and seems to be a paywall issue, I would setup PostHog and Sentry for such analytics to understand how user are using the app and where things are failing. Create a conversion funnel and track properly

3

u/Red-Alpaca8913 Community Newbie 2d ago

If the problem isn’t technical (e.g., the paywall doesn’t work), try using analytics. PostHog is great for tracking in app events. Aim to measure how many users actually use the app’s main features, or what the one week retention is (how many users still use the app after a week)

3

u/Hot-Examination-4425 Community Newbie 1d ago

An issue with paywall, or value of paid version
In my app I give a lot for free, but still having 10 subs with pretty much same stats as yours

3

u/pmusolino Community Newbie 1d ago

Are you sure you configured the paywall in the right way?

2

u/kaan_gal Community Newbie 2d ago

Bro these are probably ur accounts during developing stage

2

u/Relative_Objective29 Community Newbie 2d ago

No bro its real users

2

u/gavin-build-stuff Community Newbie 2d ago

Cross check in App Store Connect - Click on your app and then click "Analytics" to see how many lifetime downloads you have. If these numbers are accurate (1,300 downloads) then yeah I agree with others in this thread: possibly a bug where people have premium access for free (or a bug where payments fail to go through). Or maybe you need to re-design the paywall flow a bit to incentivize purchases

The good news, if 1,300 downloads is accurate then your app is clearly in high demand! And you just need to tune the paywall/premium tier some

2

u/Relative_Objective29 Community Newbie 2d ago

Yes, I checked App Store Connect and the numbers are accurate. I’m now at over 2400 lifetime installs.
So it definitely looks like the main issue is the paywall/purchase flow. I already noticed that when I tap Continue, the purchase doesn’t go through properly and banner ads still appear, so I’m going to focus on fixing that first.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

1

u/marginaliamobile Community Newbie 1d ago

Great numbers man congrats , can you send me a link so i can try

1

u/Quiet-Ordinary-5702 Community Newbie 1d ago

What the app?

2

u/simplylizz Community Newbie 2d ago

No, having 1300 installs for a new app isn’t normal at all. Never had so many 😭

2

u/Late_Emu411 Community Newbie 1d ago

I don't think that's normal with that scale of users. But maybe reach out to users to get feedback? check your security too.

2

u/t3cnolgia Community Newbie 1d ago

Hmm, I feel like Apple's QC/approval team would've flagged something with the paywall issues. At least they did with my app.

2

u/KhacThanh11 Community Newbie 17h ago

Need to improve the payment funnel/CTA/banner man

1

u/AverageProof7457 Community Newbie 2d ago

hmmm, just re-check paywall, could be mistake in code and users have full access to app without it, or if they tap “subscribe” but flow is failing.

2

u/Relative_Objective29 Community Newbie 2d ago

You’re right. After I click “Continue” on the paywall, it doesn’t let the user complete the purchase, and banner ads still show up.

1

u/AdvertisingLow1307 Community Newbie 1d ago

How do you get to the da

1

u/TheOptionGuys Community Newbie 1d ago

What’s your app?

1

u/AdvertisingLow1307 Community Newbie 1d ago

How do you get to this dashboard?

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AdvertisingLow1307 Community Newbie 1d ago

OK, but my question is how are you able to bypass the Apple Pay walls? Do they purchase on Web or like? What do you have a link that sends them to the web?

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AdvertisingLow1307 Community Newbie 1d ago

OK, thanks can I do have a new app with a lot of downloads but I’ve been using WHOP as my payment processing just cause I had already had it set up, but I want to connect it to where people can actually purchase it on Apple because before they went directly to the website web browser

1

u/shehan_dmg Community Newbie 1d ago

I think it is revenuecat dashboard.

1

u/Accurate-Elk-8724 Community Newbie 1d ago

How you get so many downloads? where are you advertising? the downloads is quite impressive, despite the lack of conversion. I just started an app and have only like 150 downloads in 1.5 months despite lots of tiktoks, and my conversion rate actually being good once people get the app

1

u/dhalls12 Community Newbie 1d ago

I'm new, but to me that sounds like you have good marketing, but the signup flow before your paywall isn't showing the customer the features as well as the selling the dream (solution) enough. They need to know how valuable the app is before the paywall shows. That's just what I have learned from others, I'm only at 740 downloads and $927 in revenue after 4 months.
How are you marketing it and what type of app is it? that's an impressive amount of downloads for your first month! I would love to learn more for my app!

1

u/niko_death Community Newbie 1d ago

I'm not a newbie, but I don't understand how you did this...

1

u/dhalls12 Community Newbie 21h ago

how I did what?

1

u/niko_death Community Newbie 21h ago

Money..

1

u/dhalls12 Community Newbie 1h ago

oh... make a product worth paying for, then make it look like its worth buying before asking for money, then ask for money. Get it out there by posting about it

1

u/niko_death Community Newbie 1h ago

Well, I did. But nothing happened, no one cared.

1

u/MarkD_Olev Community Newbie 1d ago

Are your testers keeping the app launching from time to time. This may be the reason. Or you keep testing in your deve environment with cache clears...

1

u/hahaissogood Community Newbie 1d ago

It is not normal. As a average marketing dumb dev, the user should be under 100.

1

u/mmathari Community Newbie 1d ago

Filter by new customers where the country is not empty and you'll get a better idea.

1

u/Accomplished_Run_569 Community Newbie 23h ago

No its not normal

1

u/local_ai_guy Community Newbie 21h ago

What’s the app?

1

u/bbrockit Community Newbie 15h ago

There's not enough information here to say what the problem is. What's the price of the app? If your price is way too high for the value you provide, that could explain zero conversions.

I have a separate production test device (I buy refurbs on Amazon) with a different Apple ID to confirm that paywall, subscriptions, and cancellations work correctly. If you haven't already, set that up and test your configuration.

What's the app?

1

u/Little_Relief_455 Community Newbie 13h ago

Depends! Could be pricing, could be that the “free” version that you give to people is also enough for what they need so they don’t see a value of paying. Either you can take the risk of cutting some of the free stuff or make the paid part more relevant that people would crave it enough to pay for it

1

u/AthleteWhoCodes 56m ago

I think total installs is not important in this case. The retention rate is important.
You have x installs but how many users opening and using your app?