The top paid app list in the App Store is fairly static, and if you remember episode #92 where I compared the highest-earning paid apps and free apps, there's not that much money there to begin with.
Which is why I was a bit surprised to see a single franchise take over most of the top paid app list last week. And it continued into this week so I just had to do some digging.
Five Nights at Freddy's is a series of horror games that take place in a haunted pizzeria that was released in 2014 and went viral outside of the App Store and Google Play.
A few weeks ago, Five Nights at Freddy's 1-4 + SL, all paid games that cost $2.99 (in the U.S. App Store) took over the top paid app list. As of right now, they're still in command ranking just below Minecraft.
We estimate that together, the 5 games that are at the top of the chart, have earned more than $1.2M of net revenue in the U.S. across the App Store and Google Play. That's an amazing haul for a collection that's nearly 7 year old and hasn't been updated in more than a year.
May’s top app charts were mostly stuck, but ChatGPT kept growing in downloads while TikTok kept leading revenue and Google One climbed into the top five.
Apple's WWDC 2026 app song named a tiny slice of the App Store, but the apps behind the lyrics are far bigger, older, and more successful than average.