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I ranked the highest earning apps in the world in October and I'm happy to share, app revenue rose in October.
Yes, TikTok's still the champion, but you won't believe how much money ChatGPT earned!
TikTok was the highest-earning mobile app in the world in October. Appfigures Intelligence shows it earned $316M after Apple's and Google's fees. Not an all-time high, but a smidge higher than September, and that's not bad considering most money is moving towards AI these days.
ChatGPT was the second highest earner, raking in $187M in estimated net revenue, an increase of $13M over September. Also not an all-time high, but considering the competition and the general dislike of ChatGPT 5, this is good news.
OpenAI has been very active trying to build everything and has shipped a slew of quality of life features in the hopes of getting to the mass market ahead of Grok and Gemini. I expect all competitors to add these as well so the real differentiator will become bigger features like image and video generation, audio generation, and memory management.
We already saw Sora's rise (and fall) playing out right in the App Store and I expect to see more attempts like this from every other flagship AI app in the coming months.
YouTube, Tinder, and Google One round out the top five. Yes, Google One!
Google One's revenue has been growing steadily, reaching an all-time high in October with $109M after store fees, with the majority of revenue coming from Google Play. Yes, Google is using in-app purchases in its own apps vs direct billing.
Side note for developers: Google didn't have to use in-app purchases in Google One. They run the store and can do pretty much whatever they want, something they've done in other apps. I think they chose in-app purchases because they know the friction there is the smallest.
Other than Google One's rise, October was a pretty boring month in revenue with minimal movement. But the holiday season is right around the corner so I expect that to change.
Together, the top 10 highest earning apps in October brought in $1.3B after fees, according to Appfigures Intelligence. It's a rounding error away from September, but we're in the billions again, so that's okay.
I crunched the numbers and rounded up the most downloaded apps in the world for October and the trend that started back in March continues through October!
Let's look at the winner:
ChatGPT was the most downloaded app in the world in October. It feels new but I looked back and confirmed it dethroned the previous king, TikTok, all the way back in February! That's quite the run, and even though competition has intensified, I expect it to rank supreme at least through the rest of 2025.
Appfigures Intelligence shows ChatGPT was downloaded 43.1M times from the App Store and Google Play in October, with the bulk of the downloads coming from Google Play. A little drop from September, which is expected considering the rising competition.
It's worth noting none of the competitors have reached ChatGPT's scale yet though, leading to my previous statement.
TikTok isn't gone though. After being pushed down by Gemini last month, demand for Gemini dropped a bit allowing TikTok to reclaim its 2nd spot with 35.5M downloads in October, according to our estimates.
And Gemini is still in demand, ranking 3rd in October with 34.3M estimated downloads, down from 40M in September.
Instagram and Facebook round out the top five most downloaded apps in the world. Both saw more downloads in October, but it's clear AI is what's getting most of the attention these days.
Speaking of TikTok, I noticed CapCut is climbing up the ranks, having added almost a million more downloads compared to September. That's a lot of new users that aren't going with the incumbents.
Another one I'm keeping an eye on is Temu, the Chinese shopping app that took the US by storm a few years ago, but has seen demand dimish since the US closed a loophole that let Temu skip tariffs. Temu's downloads rose to 19M in October, pushing Telegram down to earn the 8th spot on the list.
And one last interesting insight - Perplexity made its way into our charts for the first time. Perplexity, the AI app that feels like the lovechild of Gemini and Grok, made its way into the list on Google Play with 13.2M estimated downloads.
I don't know what to expect with Perplexity, but it's very clear the appetite for AI is growing.
Together, the top 10 most downloaded app saw 276M downloads in October, according to Appfigures Intelligence. That's a bit higher than September, and almost every app on the list saw an increase. That's good.
Better intelligence to beat the competition faster!
It feels like everything interesting in the app world is centered around AI right now it's because that's not wrong. AI companies are in a race for brand recognition and in the process we, the users, are winning. Very much like where streaming apps were back in 2020.
AI app revenue has been growing steadily for quite a while now, led mostly by ChatGPT, but this October, the "Big 5" AI apps reached a new all-time high, and it's not ChatGPT's fault.
The "Big 5" AI apps include ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. They represent where most users go when they think of AI right now and they have the revenue to show for it.
In October, the group's net revenue peaked at $206M, according to Appfigures Intelligence, and that's all after store fees. That's the most the group has ever earned. The previous peak was back in June with $193M in net revenue.
Individually, all five are currently earning at an all-time high, too.
Our estimates show ChatGPT leads the pack with $187M of net revenue in October.
Grok follows with $8.7M of net revenue, according to our estimates. Grok has been the fastest growing AI app in terms of revenue. October marks a 50% increase from September.
Claude comes in third with $5M of net revenue, Perplexity with $3.1M, and Gemini with $1.7M, according to our App Intelligence. One thing to note is that the revenue we're tracking for Gemini is only coming from the App Store. On Google Play the app doesn't use in-app purchases.
Although ChatGPT is by far the biggest, its revenue trend tells an important story. Revenue growth has slowed down and for most of the summer, went negative as its competitors grew. To me this means LLMs are mutually exclusive to many.
I mentioned streaming because I see a very similar pattern, and if that is the case, it means what we're getting now isn't sustainable. Who do you think will win the race?
While Apple Music and Spotify battle it out for supremacy, a quieter revolution is happening in music streaming. Non-traditional players like Pandora, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, SoundCloud, and Tidal are seeing serious growth, and in 2025, they've collectively reached an all-time high in revenue.
Together, these five apps earned $106M in net revenue in October 2025, according to Appfigures Intelligence. That's up from $88M in October 2024, a whopping 21% year-over-year increase. And what's more interesting? Every single one of them contributed to that growth.
YouTube Music Is the Standout
YouTube Music has been the surprise winner in this group, earning $38M in net revenue in October. That's a 41% increase compared to October 2024 and 54% higher than January of 2024, and here's what makes it impressive: YouTube Music has grown every single month since the beginning of 2024. No dips. No plateaus. Just consistent, steady growth.
It's clear YouTube's strategy of bundling music with video and leveraging its massive existing user base is paying off. Users already know YouTube, so the transition to YouTube Music feels natural rather than requiring a completely new platform.
The Old Guard Isn't Dead
Pandora, the OG of streaming radio, pulled in $29M in October after fees, up from $24M last year, according to our estimates. For a service that's been around since before "streaming" was even a buzzword, this is impressive. Pandora had its ups and downs over the years, but 2025 has treated it well with steady growth through most of the year.
SoundCloud earned $13M in October, up from $11M last year. What makes SoundCloud interesting is that it's not really competing with Spotify or any of these apps on the same terms because it's a platform for independent artists and emerging creators. Its growth suggests that independent music isn't just surviving, it's thriving, and people are willing to pay to get it.
New(er) Players Are Growing Too
Amazon Music and Tidal round out the group with $19M and $5.2M respectively. Both saw solid year-over-year growth—Amazon Music up 19% and Tidal up 20% vs 2024.
Tidal's 20% growth is particularly noteworthy given its smaller size and focus on high-fidelity audio, a niche that many thought wouldn't be big enough to support a standalone service but turns out it is.
What's Driving This?
I think what's driving the demand are prices and discovery.
Apple Music and Spotify keep raising prices and making changes users don't always love. That creates openings for alternatives with similar catalogs like YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal.
On the other side we have discovery - with radio no longer being something most people use, it's becoming hard to find new music. Sure, Spotify and Apple Music have suggestions, but those usually silo you into the same stuff you already know. SoundCloud's indie artist focus and Pandora's radio-style discovery are different.
The music streaming market isn't a winner-take-all game anymore. There's real room for competition, and these numbers prove it.
Appfigures has the intelligence you need
Short answer. No.
I recently said that on LinkedIn and got a ton of comments. Those who tried agreed while others said those who make a paid app at this point have a reason (or, they were just trying to ride the coattails of a viral post).
No isn't a good enough answer though, so let's take a closer look at paid apps on the App Store and Google Play and the no will become clearer.
According to Appfigures Explorer, there are currently 138,937 paid apps and games in the App Store and on Google Play. The average price of those is $5.75 and you could buy all of them for roughly $799K.
They split pretty evenly with the App Store having 53% of the total and Google Play the rest, and the average price is a bit higher on the App Store ($6.36) and a bit lower on Google Play ($4.95) but overall similar enough which means most developers figured out what users are willing to pay and it's not too dependent on platform.
Games make up about 19% and the rest are apps.
Is that more or less than you expected?
Let me put it in context first. Paid apps make up just 3.6% of the total numbers of apps and games on the App Store and Google Play, and you can buy them all with just three days of net revenue from a phone storage cleaning app.
So, why shouldn't you make a paid app or game?
But wait, some purists believe it simplifies the experience for the user and for them. They aren't wrong, but that's a lazy strategy that all five reasons I gave before show isn't worth it.
Heading into 2026, with constantly growing revenue potential and also tougher competition, don't make it any harder for users to get your app.
#261 - The streaming race is moving in an unexpected direction, a rare look into Etsy's marketplace size, what Black Friday could mean for X, and the most downloaded and highest earning mobile games in October.
#260 - AI can make amazing music, dating apps are peaking again, Snapchat's still growing, Twitch's new(ish) competitor, and more.