Trial-to-paid conversion benchmark for Subscription apps apps (2026)

    Trial-to-paid conversion benchmark for Subscription apps apps

    Published range

    15%–65%

    Across 2 published sources, which do not agree. The spread is the finding.

    Why the published figures disagree

    Most pages answering this question state one number. That is misleading here: the sources below differ by more than the gap between a healthy app and a failing one, and the difference is almost entirely methodology — which apps were in the sample, whether installs were paid or organic, and how the day window was counted.

    Comparing your own figure against the wrong one of these produces the wrong decision, which is the practical reason this page lists all of them instead of averaging.

    Every published figure

    What trial-to-paid conversion actually measures

    The share of users starting a free trial who convert to a paid subscription.

    Where the measurement goes wrong

    Trial-to-paid looks healthy in isolation while the install-to-trial step quietly fails. The two must be read together: 60% of a trial cohort that is 3% of installs is a worse business than 40% of a cohort that is 25%.

    Your number is below this. Now what?

    A benchmark tells you whether to worry, not what to do. Retention is downstream of activation: if users are not reaching the thing the product is for, no amount of re-engagement fixes the curve. That is the first thing worth checking, and it is usually the least instrumented part of the funnel.