App Store Pricing Report: Q1 2026
Comprehensive market intelligence covering 136.1K apps across Apple App Store & Google Play. Covering January–March.
Key Metrics
Executive Summary
As of Q1 2026, App Pricing Lab tracks 136.1K apps across the Apple App Store (118.0K apps) and Google Play (18.0K apps). 90% of all apps are free to download, while 13% offer in-app purchases as a monetization strategy. Data reflects the current state of the app stores.
The average rating across all tracked apps stands at 3.8 out of 5 stars. Among paid apps, the average price is $41.03. We detected 477 IAP price changes during this period.
Market Trends — Last 12 Weeks
Weekly activity trends across the app store ecosystem. Data sourced from daily crawls of Apple App Store and Google Play.
New Apps Discovered Per Week
IAP Price Changes Per Week
Daily Rankings Tracked (Last 30 Days)
App Price Distribution
How apps are priced across both stores.
| Price Range | Apps | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 122.3K | 89.9% |
| $0.01–$0.99 | 2.7K | 2.0% |
| $1–$4.99 | 7.1K | 5.2% |
| $5–$9.99 | 2.3K | 1.7% |
| $10–$24.99 | 1.1K | 0.8% |
| $25+ | 572 | 0.4% |
Rating Distribution
User rating breakdown across all tracked apps.
| Rating | Apps | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1–1.9★ | 19.7K | 14.5% |
| No Rating | 5.0K | 3.7% |
| 2–2.9★ | 4.1K | 3.0% |
| 3–3.9★ | 13.6K | 10.0% |
| 4–4.4★ | 28.1K | 20.6% |
| 4.5–5★ | 65.7K | 48.3% |
Top Categories by App Count
| # | Category | Store | Apps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Games | 🍎 Apple | 18.1K |
| 2 | Education | 🍎 Apple | 10.1K |
| 3 | Utilities | 🍎 Apple | 8.5K |
| 4 | Health & Fitness | 🍎 Apple | 6.9K |
| 5 | Business | 🍎 Apple | 6.6K |
| 6 | Lifestyle | 🍎 Apple | 6.3K |
| 7 | Productivity | 🍎 Apple | 6.1K |
| 8 | Finance | 🍎 Apple | 5.7K |
| 9 | Entertainment | 🍎 Apple | 5.2K |
| 10 | Shopping | 🍎 Apple | 4.1K |
| 11 | Photo & Video | 🍎 Apple | 4.1K |
| 12 | Music | 🍎 Apple | 3.7K |
| 13 | Travel | 🍎 Apple | 3.5K |
| 14 | Food & Drink | 🍎 Apple | 3.4K |
| 15 | Social Networking | 🍎 Apple | 2.9K |
| 16 | Sports | 🍎 Apple | 2.8K |
| 17 | News | 🍎 Apple | 2.5K |
| 18 | Medical | 🍎 Apple | 2.4K |
| 19 | Reference | 🍎 Apple | 2.3K |
| 20 | Book | 🍎 Apple | 1.8K |
Categories with Most In-App Purchases
Which categories rely most heavily on IAP monetization.
| # | Category | Apps with IAP |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Games | 2.9K |
| 2 | Education | 606 |
| 3 | Sports | 569 |
| 4 | Entertainment | 516 |
| 5 | Health & Fitness | 510 |
| 6 | Productivity | 449 |
| 7 | Lifestyle | 401 |
| 8 | Role Playing | 356 |
| 9 | Simulation | 348 |
| 10 | Music | 345 |
| 11 | Strategy | 334 |
| 12 | Puzzle | 332 |
| 13 | Action | 325 |
| 14 | Casual | 307 |
| 15 | Board | 305 |
Top Developers by App Count
| # | Developer | Store | Apps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TvStartup Inc. | 🍎 | 204 |
| 2 | CINC Systems | 🍎 | 202 |
| 3 | Coding Minds, Inc. | 🍎 | 202 |
| 4 | Makeover Mania Story Games | 🍎 | 201 |
| 5 | omer cetin | 🍎 | 201 |
| 6 | Alexander Pyjik | 🍎 | 200 |
| 7 | Create Community | 🍎 | 200 |
| 8 | PressPad Sp. z o.o. | 🍎 | 157 |
| 9 | rahul baweja | 🍎 | 151 |
| 10 | Gray Television Group, Inc. | 🍎 | 145 |
| 11 | Pentagon2000 | 🍎 | 142 |
| 12 | Voodoo | 🍎 | 140 |
| 13 | AI Games FZ | 🍎 | 133 |
| 14 | Loyal Foundry, Inc. | 🍎 | 132 |
| 15 | Juicestand Inc | 🍎 | 123 |
Related Analysis
Weekly IAP Price Digest
This week's in-app purchase price changes — drops, increases, new items, and removals across both stores.
Free vs Paid Analysis
How monetization varies by category. Paid ratios, average prices, and benchmarks.
App Store vs Google Play
Side-by-side comparison of both platforms — app counts, ratings, prices, and category distribution.
Category Statistics
Compare all app categories by size, ratings, pricing, and IAP adoption.
Trending Apps Today
Apps climbing the charts right now — ranking gainers across all categories.
New App Arrivals
Recently discovered apps entering our tracking database this week.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many apps are in the app stores in Q1 2026?
App Pricing Lab tracks 136.1K apps: 118.0K on Apple App Store and 18.0K on Google Play.
What percentage of apps offer in-app purchases?
13% of all tracked apps (17.6K) offer in-app purchases. IAP is the dominant monetization strategy in mobile apps.
What is the average app rating?
The average rating is 3.8 out of 5 stars across 136.1K apps.
What is the average price of paid apps?
Paid apps cost $41.03 on average. However, 90% of apps are free to download.
How is this data collected?
App Pricing Lab crawls the Apple App Store and Google Play daily, tracking rankings, pricing, IAP items, and developer information . Updated daily.
Cite This Report
You're welcome to reference data from this report. Please link back to this page when citing.
According to <a href="https://apppricinglab.com/reports/market/2026/q1">App Pricing Lab's Q1 2026 Market Report</a>, 136.1K apps are tracked across Apple App Store and Google Play, with 13% offering in-app purchases.- 136.1K apps tracked (118.0K Apple + 18.0K Google Play)
- 90% of apps are free to download
- 13% of apps offer in-app purchases
- Average app rating: 3.8★
- Average paid app price: $41.03
- 477 IAP price changes detected