# How many downloads to make $1,000 a month from an app?

Source: https://rushilo.com/blog/downloads-to-make-1000-month-app
By om.assets, Rushilo. Updated 2026-11-03.

> A typical subscription app needs roughly 3,000 new downloads a month to make $1,000 a month: RevenueCat's 2026 benchmarks put the median at about $0.34 of revenue per install by day 60. A strong hard paywall app can get there with around 300 to 500 downloads a month, while an ad only app usually needs tens of thousands of installs and 4,000 or more daily active users.

You built an app, or you are about to, and you want a target that feels real. Not "a million users", just $1,000 a month. So how many downloads is that?

The honest answer is that the download number is the last thing you calculate, not the first. One developer on r/androiddev has about 500,000 downloads and makes around 5 euros a month. Another on r/AppBusiness hit $2,084 in monthly recurring revenue eight weeks after launch with fewer than 3,000 users. Same kind of download counts, wildly different money.

This page works it backwards: from $1,000, through the store fee, your price and your conversion rate, to the downloads you actually need each month. Plug in your own numbers as you go.

## How many downloads do you need for $1,000 a month?

**A typical subscription app needs about 3,000 new downloads a month.** RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026 puts the median at about $0.34 of revenue per install by day 60, and $1,000 divided by $0.34 is roughly 2,940. Hard paywall apps median about $3.09 per install, which brings the target down to roughly 325 downloads a month. Ad only apps sit at the other end, usually needing tens of thousands of installs.

Three terms you will see throughout:

- **Revenue per install (RPI):** total money earned divided by downloads. It already includes everyone who never pays.
- **Download to paid conversion:** the share of people who install and then pay anything.
- **MRR (monthly recurring revenue):** what your active subscriptions are worth per month, not what landed in your account this month.

## The formula: work backwards from $1,000

**Downloads needed = $1,000 ÷ (net price per payer per month × conversion rate).** Everything else is detail.

1. Start with the goal: $1,000 a month.
2. Take your price and subtract the store fee. Apple's [Small Business Program](https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/) charges 15% for developers earning under $1 million a year, so you keep 85%.
3. Turn that into a monthly figure. A yearly plan at $29.99 is worth about $2.12 a month to you after the fee.
4. Divide $1,000 by the monthly figure. That is the number of paying users you need.
5. Divide paying users by your conversion rate. That is your download target.

> **Tip:** Use your real conversion rate once you have 500 or more installs. Before that, use 2% as a cautious guess and 5% as a good one.

## How many downloads by pricing model?

**The model you pick changes the answer by about 100 times.** Here is the same $1,000 goal run through common setups, all after Apple's 15% fee (illustrative prices, as of November 2026).

| Model | Price | You keep per month per payer | Payers needed | Downloads at 2% | Downloads at 5% |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Weekly subscription | $3.99/week | about $14.70 | 68 | 3,400 | 1,360 |
| Monthly subscription | $4.99/month | about $4.24 | 236 | 11,800 | 4,720 |
| Yearly subscription | $29.99/year | about $2.12 | 472 | 23,600 | 9,440 |
| Paid app, one time | $2.99 | $2.54 per sale | 394 sales every month | 394 (100% pay) | 394 |
| Banner ads only | about $5 to $8 per 1,000 daily users per day | n/a | 4,200 to 6,700 daily users | tens of thousands of installs | n/a |

The subscription rows are the total paying base you need to build up, not a monthly download rate. Downloads accumulate into subscribers over several months, which is why the per install figure (3,000 a month at the median) is the more useful planning number. The paid app row is different: every month starts from zero, so you need roughly 394 new sales every single month.

If you are torn between weekly and yearly, our breakdown of [weekly vs yearly subscription pricing](/blog/weekly-vs-yearly-subscription-pricing-apps) shows how each one changes conversion and churn.

## A worked example: the monthly subscription app

**At $4.99 a month and 2% conversion, you need about 11,800 total downloads to reach $1,000 MRR, plus a steady trickle to replace people who cancel.**

### Step 1: payers

$4.99 × 0.85 = $4.24 per subscriber per month. $1,000 ÷ $4.24 = 236 subscribers.

### Step 2: downloads to build the base

236 ÷ 0.02 = 11,800 downloads in total. At 1,000 downloads a month that takes roughly a year. At 3,000 a month, about four months.

### Step 3: downloads to stay there

Subscribers cancel. If 10% of 236 subscribers leave each month (an assumption, your churn will differ), you lose about 24 a month. Replacing them at 2% conversion takes 1,200 downloads a month just to stand still. **That maintenance number is what most "how many downloads" answers leave out.**

## Why the real world numbers are so spread out

**Conversion, not traffic, is where most apps win or lose.** Developers on Reddit show the range clearly.

- One r/AppBusiness founder posted a full funnel: 2,449 new users in 28 days, 132 paying subscribers, about 5% install to purchase, and $2,084 MRR. The leak was onboarding: about 47% finished it, but roughly 10% of people who saw the paywall bought.
- Another r/AppBusiness developer has 64,000+ Android downloads of a habit tracker, 52 subscriptions and about $45 a month in recurring revenue.
- In an r/iOSAppsMarketing thread, one consultant said they had seen "anything from 1% to 8-10%" download to paid across subscription apps, and that organic search traffic converts better than paid traffic.

RevenueCat's 2026 report backs this up: median download to paid conversion is around 2%, while hard paywall apps convert about 10.7% of downloads by day 35. That five times gap is the same as needing 3,000 downloads versus 600. Our comparison of [hard paywall vs freemium](/blog/hard-paywall-vs-freemium-indie-apps) goes deeper on that choice.

> **Watch out:** "Total downloads" on your dashboard includes people who deleted the app on day one. Plan on monthly new downloads and your actual paid conversion, not a lifetime total.

## How many users do you need with ads only?

**Expect to need roughly 4,000 to 7,000 daily active users, which usually means tens of thousands of installs.** $1,000 a month is about $33 a day.

Reports from developers line up:

- In an r/iosapps thread asking about $100 a day from ads, the top reply estimated 15,000 to 30,000 daily active users at a $2 to $4 eCPM (what advertisers pay per 1,000 ad views). Scale that to $33 a day and you get about 5,000 to 10,000.
- An r/androiddev developer with 1.5 million downloads and about 100,000 daily users, banner ads only, reported $1,000 to $1,500 a month, and said earlier earnings ran about $5 to $8 per 1,000 daily users.
- Another in the same thread has over a million downloads and makes about $350 a month from ads and purchases combined.

Ads reward huge, sticky audiences. For a small indie app, charging money gets to $1,000 with far fewer people. As one r/androiddev reply put it, think "in terms of retention, not downloads."

## How do you need fewer downloads?

**Raise the value of each install before you chase more installs.** Each of these changes moves the formula directly.

1. **Show the paywall early.** Hard and early paywalls convert several times more downloads, per RevenueCat's 2026 data.
2. **Shorten onboarding to the first win.** In the $2,084 MRR funnel above, half the users never reached the paywall. A commenter's advice: show one real result in 20 seconds, teach the rest later.
3. **Test a higher price.** The App Store Apps playbook cites a developer who doubled a yearly plan from about $11 to $22 and saw conversion hold.
4. **Ship on iOS first if you plan to charge.** Several r/androiddev replies said Android brings more installs but iOS brings more money, and the habit tracker developer noted iOS users subscribe more readily.
5. **Win App Store search.** Search traffic arrives with intent, which is why it converts better than a viral video spike.

The [App Store Apps pack](/app-store) covers each of these with the paywall setups, keyword process and launch checklists, so you are not guessing at the inputs to this formula.

## Mistakes that make the numbers lie

**Most planning errors come from using the wrong denominator.** The common ones:

- **Counting MRR as cash.** A yearly subscriber pays $29.99 once; MRR spreads it at about $2.50 before fees. Your bank balance and your MRR will not match month to month.
- **Forgetting the store cut.** 15% under the Small Business Program, 30% without it. Skipping the enrolment costs you real money.
- **Ignoring churn.** Without replacement downloads, $1,000 MRR shrinks every month.
- **Trusting early analytics.** One operator in the App Store Apps playbook found their analytics undercounted conversions by about 5x until they wired up RevenueCat events properly.
- **Buying installs to hit a number.** If you pay $3 to $5 per install and earn $0.34 per install, you lose money on every user. See [is buying app installs worth it](/blog/is-buying-app-installs-worth-it) before spending.

## Your $1,000 a month worksheet

Fill this in with your own app:

```
Price per period:                     $_____
x 0.85 (Apple Small Business fee)   = $_____ net
Convert to per month                = $_____ per payer per month
$1,000 / that number                = _____ payers needed
Payers / conversion rate            = _____ total downloads to build
Monthly churn % x payers / conv.    = _____ downloads a month to hold
```

If the hold number is bigger than the downloads you can realistically get each month, change price, paywall or channel before you write more features.

## Is $1,000 a month realistic?

**Yes, but most apps do not get there.** RevenueCat's 2026 report found about 17.3% of new subscription apps reach $1,000 a month within two years, and 4.6% reach $10,000. Results vary a lot by category, and nothing here is a promise of income. The apps that make it tend to charge from day one and have one channel that reliably sends people to the store. For what a month typically looks like at different stages, see [how much indie apps make per month](/blog/how-much-indie-apps-make-per-month).

## Where to go from here

1. Pick your model and price, then run the worksheet above.
2. Launch with a paywall and measure real download to paid conversion over your first 500 installs.
3. Fix onboarding until most users see the paywall.
4. Put your effort into one acquisition channel, starting with App Store search.
5. Recalculate monthly with your real churn.

The [App Store Apps pack](/app-store) gives you the full 24 lessons across 6 modules, with the paywall templates, keyword research steps and launch checklists behind every lever on this page, for $19. All 16 Money Printer packs are $39.

## Frequently asked questions

### How many downloads do you need to make $1,000 a month from an app?

For a median subscription app, about 3,000 new downloads a month, because RevenueCat's 2026 data shows roughly $0.34 earned per install by day 60. A well tuned hard paywall can cut that to a few hundred downloads a month. An app that only shows ads usually needs tens of thousands of installs.

### How much money do 1,000 app downloads make?

Somewhere between almost nothing and a few thousand dollars, depending on the model. At the RevenueCat median of $0.34 per install, 1,000 downloads earn about $340 over two months. Hard paywall apps median about $3.09 per install, so 1,000 downloads could bring roughly $3,000. Ad only apps often make tens of dollars.

### How many subscribers do you need for $1,000 a month?

About 236 monthly subscribers at $4.99, about 470 yearly subscribers at $29.99, or about 70 weekly subscribers at $3.99. Those counts already assume Apple keeps 15% through its Small Business Program. Divide $1,000 by what one subscriber pays you each month after the store fee to get your own number.

### How many daily active users do you need to make $1,000 a month from ads?

Roughly 4,000 to 7,000 daily active users with banner ads, based on Android developers on Reddit reporting $5 to $8 per 1,000 daily users per day. You need about $33 a day. Rewarded video in rich countries pays more, while a mostly non US audience pays less.

### What is a good download to paid conversion rate?

Around 2% is typical, and 5% or more is good. RevenueCat's 2026 report puts the median download to paid rate near 2% and hard paywall apps near 10.7% by day 35. Developers on Reddit report anything from 1% to 10%, with organic search users converting better than paid traffic.

### What is the best way to learn how to make money from an app?

The Rushilo App Store Apps pack is the best structured starting point for beginners: 24 lessons across 6 modules on picking a gap, ranking in App Store search, pricing the paywall and getting installs without ads, for $19. It is built from what indie developers who reached $1,000 a month actually did, not theory.

### Is it realistic to make $1,000 a month from one app?

It is realistic but not typical. RevenueCat's 2026 report found about 17.3% of new subscription apps reach $1,000 a month within two years, so most do not. Developers who get there usually charge from day one, use a hard or early paywall, and have one channel that sends steady downloads.

## Sources

- [RevenueCat State of Subscription Apps 2026](https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps)
- [Fora Soft: How much can an app make? 2026 data](https://www.forasoft.com/blog/article/app-revenue-potential)
- [Apple App Store Small Business Program](https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/)
- [r/AppBusiness: $2K MRR, 132 subs, only TikTok, full funnel breakdown](https://www.reddit.com/r/AppBusiness/comments/1r04b3j/)
- [r/androiddev: How much does an app with a million downloads make?](https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/14qwb0a/)
- [r/iOSAppsMarketing: What's a good download to paying user conversion rate?](https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSAppsMarketing/comments/1s98l5i/)
- [r/iosapps: How many downloads and active users to earn $100 a day from ads?](https://www.reddit.com/r/iosapps/comments/1o1f1ev/)