What Is ARPPU? Formula, Examples and Benchmarks

What is ARPPU?

ARPPU stands for average revenue per paying user. It is the revenue from purchases in a period divided by the number of distinct users who paid at least once in that period. If 800 players bought something in March and their purchases brought you $6,400, your March ARPPU is $8.00. Unlike ARPU, it ignores everyone who did not pay, so it tells you how much your buyers spend, not how many people buy.

The ARPPU formula and how to calculate it

ARPPU = purchase revenue in the period / distinct paying users in the period

AppsFlyer’s ARPPU glossary entry uses the same formula and notes two things that trip people up: ARPPU leaves out non-paying users and ad revenue, and a daily ARPPU and a monthly ARPPU give different results. To calculate it the same way every time:

1. Pick the period. A day, a calendar month, or a cohort window such as the first 30 days after install.
2. Pick the revenue. In-app purchases, subscriptions, or both. Leave ad and offerwall revenue out, because the people who generate it are not buyers.
3. Use net revenue. What you actually receive after store fees, refunds and chargebacks (covered in the gross vs net section below).
4. Count people, not transactions. A player who buys five times in a month is one paying user. Dividing by purchases gives you average order value, a different metric.

ARPPU vs ARPU vs ARPDAU

The three metrics share a numerator but divide by different groups of people. We cover the other two in depth in What is ARPU? and What is ARPDAU?; here is how ARPPU sits next to them.

The link between them is one identity, valid when both sides use the same purchase revenue and the same period:

Purchase ARPU = ARPPU x payer conversion rate
Total ARPU = ARPPU x payer conversion rate + non-purchase revenue per user

The second line matters for any product that also earns from ads or an offerwall. Those sources raise total ARPU without touching ARPPU, because the users who generate them are counted in ARPU but not as payers. It also means purchase ARPPU can never be lower than purchase ARPU: dividing the same revenue by fewer people always gives a bigger number.

Gross vs net ARPPU: store fees, refunds and taxes

Gross ARPPU uses what users paid. Net ARPPU uses what reaches you. For decisions about spending on growth, use net, because a store fee of 15% versus 30% changes what a payer is really worth by about a fifth.

Store fees depend on the store, the product type, the region and the programs you are in. Checked on October 20, 2026:

• Apple says on its auto-renewable subscriptions page that you receive 70% of the subscription price, minus applicable taxes, in a subscriber’s first year of paid service and 85% after that year. The App Store Small Business Program has a reduced 15% commission on paid apps and in-app purchases.
• Google’s Play Console service fees page now lists different rates for subscriptions and other purchases, a separate 5% billing fee when Google Play Billing is used, and different rates for users who first installed before or after the regional rollout date (June 30, 2026 for the EEA, UK and US; September 30, 2026 for Australia and Japan). Other markets keep the older 15% and 30% tiers until the update rolls out.

After the store fee, subtract refunds and chargebacks in the period they happen, and remove sales tax or VAT where the store price includes it. If your store reports in several currencies, convert at one consistent rate per period.

Daily, monthly or lifetime: period and cohort choices

ARPPU has no fixed period, so a number without one means little. Each choice answers a different question:

• Daily ARPPU counts only users who paid that day. It is useful during a sale or event. Averaging 30 daily figures does not give you monthly ARPPU, because a player who buys on three days counts as three payer-days but one monthly payer, so monthly ARPPU is usually higher.
• Monthly ARPPU on a calendar month is the standard reporting number. It mixes new payers with people who have paid for a year, so a big install push can lower it even when nothing changed in your store.
• Cohort ARPPU follows one group, such as everyone who installed in the first week of May, and divides their cumulative net purchase revenue by how many of them have paid by day 7, 30 or 90. This is the version to use for acquisition decisions and LTV estimates.

Cohort ARPPU can fall as a cohort ages: late converters often start with a small purchase, which adds a payer to the denominator but little revenue. Read it together with cohort payer conversion. Multiplying the two gives cohort purchase revenue per install, which feeds straight into CAC vs CPA vs LTV and the LTV calculator.

Worked examples: same game, mean vs median

Take one month of a puzzle game with 60,000 monthly active users, of whom 1,200 paid (2.0% payer conversion) for $14,400 of net revenue. ARPPU is $12.00 and purchase ARPU is $12.00 × 2.0% = $0.24. Now look at who paid.

The mean says a payer is worth $12.00. The median payer spent $2.50. The top 5% of payers (60 people) brought 62.5% of revenue, and if the six top spenders skip one month, ARPPU drops to $7,830 ÷ 1,194 = $6.56 with no change in your game. Sample figures only, built to show the shape of a skewed month.

Now three pricing changes on the same game, each judged by purchase ARPU rather than ARPPU:

The second row is the classic trap: a dashboard that tracks ARPPU alone would call it a win.

ARPPU benchmarks and why they vary

Published ARPPU figures are rare, and the ones that exist define revenue, payers and period differently. We only quote sources we could check, with their dates.

Subscription apps. RevenueCat’s State of Subscription Apps 2026 covers over 115,000 apps and more than $16 billion in revenue, with 2025 as its target time frame. It reports realized lifetime value (RLTV) per payer, which it defines as the net value of an average paying user over a period, including initial subscriptions, renewals, reactivations, expansion and one-time purchases. That is close to a net cohort ARPPU. Checked on October 20, 2026:

Across all apps the report puts the year-one median at $23, with the top quartile starting at $44. These are medians across apps that use RevenueCat for subscriptions, so the gaming row describes subscription games in that data set, not a typical game that sells gems and bundles.

Mobile games. We did not find a current, free and verifiable ARPPU benchmark for mobile games, so we do not print one. What public research does show is how concentrated game spending is. Moloco’s 2025 State of Mobile Gaming study (April 15, 2025, data from January 2023 to December 2024, 100 leading gaming advertisers) found that the top 5% of U.S. iOS high-value users, just 0.02% of global installs, generated 20% of global gaming revenue across iOS and Android. With spending that concentrated, any average-based benchmark mostly measures how many big spenders a sample happened to include.

Your own ARPPU will differ from any benchmark because of:

• Price points and model. Subscriptions renew; one-off purchases do not.
• Country mix. In RevenueCat’s data, the year-one median for apps from North American developers ($32) is more than twice that for apps from India and Southeast Asia ($14).
• Gross vs net, period length, and cohort vs calendar counting.
• Payer conversion. A product where only the most committed users pay will show a higher ARPPU than one with a cheap entry offer, even at the same revenue.

The most useful benchmark is your own: the same definition, tracked month over month and cohort over cohort.

How to raise ARPPU without hurting retention

Every lever below can raise ARPPU and still cost you money if it scares off first-time buyers or the players who keep your community alive. Pair each test with guardrails: payer conversion, D7 and D30 retention, and refund rate.

Price tiers

Add a higher tier above your current top item instead of raising every price. Buyers who wanted more can spend more, and the entry price stays where it is, as in the last row of the table above.

Bundles and starter packs

A bundle that combines items players already buy raises the average order without a new price for the basics. A one-time starter pack usually lowers ARPPU in the short run, because it creates many small payers. The bet is that some first-time buyers come back for bigger purchases, so check repeat purchase rates in cohort data before you judge it.

Subscriptions and passes

A monthly pass turns one purchase into a repeat one and makes ARPPU steadier. It only works if the pass gives ongoing value; otherwise you trade a one-off purchase for a cancellation and a refund request.

Personalized offers

Offer different bundles to different segments: lapsed payers, frequent small buyers, players who stopped at a hard level. Cap how often a player sees an offer, and never show paying players a worse deal than new ones get. Hybrid monetization explains how to segment payers and non-payers.

The trade-off with payer conversion and retention

RevenueCat’s 2026 report found that AI-powered apps generate 41% more revenue per payer than others but churn 30% faster. A higher ARPPU bought with churn can lower lifetime value. Judge every change by total revenue per user over a cohort window long enough to include renewals and repeat purchases, at least 30 days. For non-payers, retention mechanics such as daily bonuses and streaks matter more than prices; rewards app retention covers them, and what is churn rate? shows how to measure the loss side.

Common ARPPU mistakes

For a product with several revenue streams, How to monetize an app shows which metric each model is judged by.

Frequently asked questions