Reddit Isn't the Same After Apollo

Apollo is dead. Long live Apollo.

Reddit has recently closed off its API to 3rd party developers and in the process, eliminated a popular app by the name of Apollo. It was a pretty ugly journey that resulted in many subreddits going on strike and some users leaving the platform for good.

All of that is now behind us and the burning question is - Has the dust settled?

The answer might surprise some of you.

Downloads of Reddit's flagship app rose sharply in mid-June. That's when the fight between Reddit and Apollo started heating up, and just a couple weeks before the API closed.

Why? A combination of Apollo users who didn't hate Reddit enough to delete their account + all the buzz generated by many complaining about Reddit's decisions. Some say all news is good news. I don't always agree, but that seems to be the case here.

And if you're thinking, "How big was Apollo anyway?" - Apollo was downloaded more than 500K times in 2023, and more than 4M times since 2018.

Since the surge started, Reddit's app was downloaded 3.6M times, according to our estimates. That's 17%, or 600K downloads higher than what they did in the previous month. Did the revenue follow?

Reddit doesn't make a lot of money from in-app purchases, which surprises many people, so prepare to start small.

Reddit's mobile apps average $16K of net revenue per day. And that's from the App Store and Google Play together, even though the App Store is responsible for 70% of the revenue.

Like downloads, revenue increased, but it didn't last as long.

In July, revenue grew for about a week, bringing the daily average to $20K, likely from the surge of new users who chose to stick with the official app.

As soon as the bump subsided, however, revenue dropped. This week, net revenue dropped 10% to just around $11K/day.

Those who want Reddit crucified will enjoy this drop and those that don't will say these numbers are too small to be meaningful.

Comparing this to other social platforms that are able to monetize their users - Reddit is leaving a lot of money on the table...