Good App Store Conversion Rate: 4% to 32% by Category

There is no single good App Store conversion rate. The honest answer is your category's median, the 50th percentile, in App Store Connect's peer benchmarks [1]. Cross-industry page-view-to-install averages cluster near 25%, but category medians run from about 4% for games to 32% for music [2][3]. The average is a trap.

That matters because the first number most indie devs reach for, "the average app converts at X%," is the least useful one. It mixes games with navigation apps, paid traffic with organic, and one vendor's measurement method with another's. This post breaks down what counts as good by category, why the published numbers disagree so much, and the one benchmark that actually tells you whether your screenshots are pulling their weight.

TL;DR:

• A good rate is at or above your category's 50th-percentile in App Store Connect peer benchmarks, not a global average [1].
• Page-view-to-install averages sit near 25%, but category medians range from roughly 4% (games) to 32% (music) [2][3].
• "Conversion rate" names different funnels. Apple measures impressions to downloads. AppTweak and SplitMetrics measure page views to installs. The denominators differ, so the numbers differ [1][2].
• Two reputable vendors disagree by up to 1.5x on the same category. Read the methodology before you compare your number to any chart.

What is a good App Store conversion rate in 2026?

A good App Store conversion rate is one at or above the median for your app's category and business model. As a rough ballpark, page-view-to-install rates average around 25% across the App Store, and SplitMetrics puts the all-app install rate at 26.4% from a sample of 10 million users and over 300 experiments [2][3]. But the category you compete in moves that number more than anything you change on the page.

So the useful version of the question is not "what is the average" but "what is good for an app like mine." A finance app at 30% might be underperforming its peers while a board game at 8% is crushing its category. The average tells you neither.

Why is there no single "good" conversion rate number?

Because "conversion rate" names at least three different funnels, and the denominator changes the answer. App Store Connect defines conversion rate as downloads and pre-orders divided by unique device impressions [1]. AppTweak and SplitMetrics define it as installs divided by product page views [2][3]. Impressions vastly outnumber page views, so Apple's own number is structurally lower than the vendor charts that everyone quotes.

Four things move the published benchmarks far enough apart that comparing across them is meaningless:

• The denominator. Apple counts impressions (every time your app appeared in search or browse). Vendors usually count page views (people who actually opened your listing). Same word, different funnel, different number [1][2].
• Redownloads. Apple counts a redownload as a conversion. SplitMetrics explicitly excludes dropped and repeat visits for benchmark accuracy [2]. That alone shifts a category by several points.
• Direct installs. Some categories report rates above 100% because first-time installs exceed page views: most people download straight from the search results without opening the listing. AppTweak shows navigation apps at an inflated 115% for exactly this reason [4][5].
• Geography and panel. A US rate and an emerging-market rate for the same app can differ by half, and every vendor's panel is weighted toward different categories.

The practical takeaway: a number is only comparable to another number measured the same way. An industry chart you found in a blog post almost certainly was not measured the way App Store Connect measures yours.

What is a good conversion rate by app category?

Category is the single biggest driver of what counts as good. SplitMetrics' page-view medians run from 4.47% for games to 32.46% for music. AppTweak's panel runs higher, up to 66.7% for business apps and that inflated 115% for navigation where direct installs exceed page views [2][4][5]. Here are SplitMetrics' category medians, measured page-view-to-install with dropped visits removed [2]:

Now put two reputable vendors side by side and watch them disagree on the same category. SplitMetrics puts Music at 32.46% and Health & Fitness at 18.52% [2]. AppTweak's panel shows Music at 47.1% and Health & Fitness at 30.8% [4]. Both measure page-view-to-install. The gap is panel composition and redownload handling, not a mistake, and it runs about 1.5x. That spread is the clearest argument for ignoring published charts and reading your own category's peer benchmark instead.

How do Apple's peer-group benchmarks change the question?

They replace the global average with your category's actual distribution. Since the March 2026 App Store Connect update, each metric widget shows your conversion rate against your peer group's 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile values, bucketed by App Store category, business model, and download-volume tier [1]. At or above the 50th percentile is good. Below the 25th for two consecutive weeks is your signal that the listing, not the market, is the problem.

Apple builds these benchmarks with differential privacy: it adds calibrated noise and only publishes a peer group once it has a minimum number of apps that week [1]. So treat the percentile bands as zones, not exact point estimates. The full method for reading these widgets, including the new Day 35 download-to-paid benchmarks, lives in the App Store Connect analytics breakdown. The headline change is simple: you no longer need an industry average, because Apple now hands you the only comparison that was ever relevant.

Does your traffic source change what counts as good?

Yes, and a blended rate hides it. A search visitor who typed a query is comparing options and converts higher than a browse visitor who stumbled across your icon. Custom Product Page (CPP) traffic from a specific ad converts differently again, because the visitor is paying off a promise the ad made. App Store Connect's cohort-by-source breakdown lets you judge each stream against its own bar instead of averaging them into one misleading number.

This is why two apps with identical blended rates can have completely different problems. One is losing organic search traffic at the first frame; the other is fine organically but wasting paid spend on a mismatched page. Splitting by source turns "my conversion is fine" into something you can actually act on.

What's a realistic conversion rate goal for an indie app?

Forget the industry average. Set the goal as two steps: beat your own 30-day baseline, then close the gap to your category's 50th percentile [1]. That keeps you measuring against apps that face the same buyers you do, not a chart built from a vendor's panel.

For subscription apps, watch the second funnel too. Page-view conversion can look healthy while trial-to-paid quietly lags. Adapty's category data puts trial-to-paid in the mid-40s for health and fitness and above 50% for travel, so a 20% page-view rate paired with a weak trial conversion is a different fix than a weak listing [4]. The lever for the listing itself is almost always the first frames a visitor sees, and you rarely know which hook wins until you see a few side by side and test them with a controlled experiment. How often you should rerun that test depends on your category's refresh cadence.

How to move your conversion rate, not just measure it

Once you know your category's 50th percentile, the work is closing the gap, and that starts with the first frame most users ever see. Run the listing through a structured App Store listing audit to find where it leaks, then rebuild the first three screenshots around a single hook. When you want to try several frame-one directions before committing, you can describe the angle and iterate on options in the builder until one is clearly stronger, then ship it and watch the peer percentile move.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average App Store conversion rate? Across all categories, page-view-to-install averages sit near 25%, with SplitMetrics reporting 26.4% from its panel [2][3]. Apple's own conversion rate is lower because it measures impressions to downloads rather than page views to installs [1].

Is a 25% conversion rate good? Only relative to your category. A 25% rate is below the median for music and utilities but well above the median for games, which sits around 4% to 5% [2][5]. Compare against your App Store Connect peer benchmark, not the cross-industry average.

Why is my App Store conversion rate different from the benchmarks I read? Almost always because of measurement method: impressions versus page views as the denominator, whether redownloads are counted, geography, and panel composition all shift the number [1][2][4]. Read each chart's methodology before comparing.

Is App Store or Google Play conversion higher? It depends on the method. AppTweak's page-view data shows Google Play slightly higher (27.3% versus 25%), while SplitMetrics, which excludes dropped visits, shows iOS ahead on like-for-like first-time conversion [2][3].