Every year, like clockwork, Hallow goes from a steady prayer app to one of the most downloaded apps in the entire App Store. But this year, the spike tells a more nuanced story.
Ash Wednesday landed on February 18th this year, and Hallow was ready. On that single day, the app was downloaded 263K times according to Appfigures Intelligence. That's roughly 25x its normal daily average of about 10K downloads. The buildup started days earlier, climbing from 77K the day before to the massive Ash Wednesday peak, then staying elevated at 236K the following day.
In just the first 22 days of February, Hallow racked up 1.2M downloads. For context, the app averaged about 280K downloads per month through most of 2025.
The engine behind this is Hallow's Pray40 challenge. A 40 day guided prayer and fasting program that kicks off on Ash Wednesday and runs through Lent. This year's lineup includes Mark Wahlberg, Jonathan Roumie from The Chosen, Chris Pratt, Gwen Stefani, and Lauren Daigle. Last year, over 1.4 million people participated.
It's a brilliant growth loop. Celebrity names drive curiosity, Ash Wednesday creates urgency, and the 40 day commitment locks users into the app through Easter. And it's working.
Here's what makes this year's spike stand out. Hallow hit exactly 263K downloads on Ash Wednesday this year, matching 2024's Ash Wednesday total almost to the number. In 2024, when Ash Wednesday fell on February 14th, the app hit 263K that day and actually peaked at 310K the next day. In 2025, with Ash Wednesday landing on March 5th, it pulled 226K on the day. The weakest of the three.
So despite Lent falling on different dates each year, Hallow's Ash Wednesday performance is remarkably consistent. And this year matched its best.
Here's where it gets interesting. Ash Wednesday downloads are remarkably consistent. 263K in 2024, 226K in 2025, 263K again this year. Almost like the calendar sets a ceiling on day-one demand.
But the surge around it? That's a different story. In 2023, Hallow's Lent month hit 1.2M downloads. The breakout. In 2024, it doubled to 2M. That was the peak. Last year's Lent pulled 1.5M, and this year's February is at 1.2M with a week still left.
The Ash Wednesday spike is clockwork. The weeks around it are fading.
Revenue tells the same story. Hallow's post-Lent revenue peak hit $10M in net revenue in March 2024, then $9.7M in April 2025. Still massive, but the trajectory is flat, not up.
Here's something important. The revenue spike doesn't happen the same month as the download spike. Hallow offers a free trial, so most of those Ash Wednesday downloads won't convert until March or April. That's exactly what the data shows in prior years. March 2024 hit $10M in net revenue. April 2025 hit $9.7M. The pattern is clear.
February 2026 revenue so far is about $1.3M. Not bad, but the real payday is coming in March.
What makes Hallow's position so interesting is how alone it is at the top of prayer app revenue. YouVersion Bible, the most downloaded Bible app in the world, is completely free. Pray.com pulled about 917K downloads during Lent 2025. Glorify and Abide are in the tens of thousands.
None of them come close to Hallow on revenue. According to our estimates, Hallow earned roughly $40M in net revenue in 2025 alone. For a single-category app in a niche most developers overlook, that kind of revenue puts it ahead of many mainstream apps with far more name recognition.
Founded by three Notre Dame grads who left McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, Hallow has raised $105M in funding and built what might be the most predictable growth engine in the App Store. Every Lent, downloads explode. Every post-Lent, revenue follows. Ash Wednesday demand lands in the same range year after year, almost like a scheduled product launch that the calendar runs for them.
But predictable doesn't mean infinite. The Lent surge peaked in 2024 at 2M downloads, and the surrounding weeks have been shrinking since. There are only so many people searching for a prayer app each Ash Wednesday, and Hallow may be approaching the natural ceiling of that audience.
The question now isn't whether the spike will come. It will. It's whether Hallow can grow beyond it. I'll be watching March closely. If the conversion pattern holds, we're looking at another $10M month in net revenue. But for the first time, the growth story is about retention and monetization, not downloads.
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