The music app industry spans a large selection of apps, but the ones that generate the most revenue and installs are music streaming services.
Launched after the failure of Napster and other illegal torrenting sites, Spotify, SoundCloud and Deezer created agreements with the music industry and are now responsible for a large percentage of recorded music revenues.
As the industry has grown, so has the variety of audio formats available. Music apps now offer podcasts, audiobooks and livestream chats. At the same time, music videos from YouTube account for a significant percentage of music streaming.
On the periphery, there are plenty of apps available to make beats, find songs via audio listening, and learn instruments. Karaoke, DJ and audio effect apps are also popular with many appearing in the top 100 most downloaded audio apps.
In terms of benchmarks, music streaming apps are focused on subscription retention and activating a user through several key steps, such as creating an account, adding playlists, and subscribing. Music streaming services have a lock-in effect, as after a few months a typical user will have added hundreds of songs to their library and playlists, making it hard to move to an alternative service.
It is for that reason that music streaming services used to offer long trial periods, or periods when the cost of a subscription were much lower, to entice users to stick around for several months. Some, such as Apple Music and Amazon Music, still offer these longer trials, to try and lock users in.
We have collected benchmarks on the music app industry. Read on below to find out more.
Key Music App Benchmarks
- The retention rate for music apps was 3.5% in 2024, iOS apps have a higher retention rate than Google Play
- iOS apps also have a higher conversion rate, at 47.1% to the 34.6% of Google Play apps
- Activation rate for music apps was 19.2% on day one, dropping to 5.8% by day 30
- Music app renewal rate was highest on monthly subscriptions, and lowest on annual subscriptions
- Monthly subscriptions also had the highest reactivation rate, of 15%, while annual subscriptions had the lowest at 6.8%
- Tidal has the highest pay per stream, of $0.0122, while YouTube Music has the lowest
Music App Report 2025
Want to learn more about the music app industry? Our Music App Report includes detailed stats on financials, market share, users, installs, demographics and benchmarks.
- Charts: 102
- Data Points: 1355
- Apps covered: 16
