ChatGPT Crossed a Revenue Milestone and (Re)Started a Gold Rush

Ariel Ariel
Oct. 4

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps - Subscription Economics. Check out the full article for more insights.


ChatGPT is one of the fastest-growing apps on the App Store (and even Google Play). It should come as no surprise that September was ChatGPT's biggest month of revenue and so was the entire quarter - and we'll get to those numbers in a bit - but it's also restarting last year's gold rush and will likely mint a few more app millionaires.

Can you guess what I'm talking about?

ChatGPT's cumulative revenue from its apps

Let's start with the numbers to get an idea for ChatGPT's scale.

According to Appfigures Intelligence, ChatGPT earned a whopping $37M of net revenue - what Sam gets to keep after store fees - from the App Store and Google Play in September. That's roughly 19% of month-over-month growth. Not ChatGPT's highest, but at these numbers, very impressive.

This growth, which is mainly coming from the US App Store, made ChatGPT rank 27th on the US App Store top-grossing chart right now.

Adding all revenue up, ChatGPT has crossed a big revenue milestone in September. Our estimates show that in September, ChatGPT's total net revenue since release crossed $250M. And by crossed, I mean really crossed.

We estimate that quarter-over-quarter cumulative net revenue rose from $177M in Q2 to $315M in Q3. We're talking about a 78% increase in a single quarter. Just wow.

ChatGPT's Gold Rush v2

Last week, OpenAI presented its Realtime API, which means developers can build apps with OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode. Well, like Advanced Voice Mode, but still very magical.

And I foresee many developers jumping on the opportunity with thin wrappers around this new API, just like the surge we saw last year.

Things are very different now and the Realtime API is really expensive, but I doubt that'll stop most from at least trying. And while the opportunity for thin wrappers is likely a short one, the opportunity for more focused apps that can benefit from voice is much larger and will have much more longevity. I'm sure that's what OPenAI is betting on.

So, if you're planning to jump on this bandwagon my suggestion for you is to find a real need for voice and build for it.

App Intelligence for Everyone!

The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

Are you a Journalist? You can get access to our app and market intelligence for free through the Appfigures for Journalists program. Contact us for more details.

All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.

Tagged: #ai

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