App retention rate: how to measure Day 1, Day 7 and Day 28 retention on Google Play and the App Store

Your app retention rate is the share of new users who come back to your app a set number of days after they first open it. It is the number that tells you whether your promotion is building an audience or filling a leaky bucket. Every install you buy, earn from search or win at launch is worth only as much as the chance that person opens the app again next week.

Both stores now give you retention data for free. In September 2026 Google Play added 2, 3, 14 and 28-day retention to the Statistics page in Play Console, next to the existing 7-day metric. App Store Connect has had a retention table for years and, since its 2026 analytics update, compares your numbers with similar apps. This guide explains what each store actually counts, what a normal retention rate looks like, how to compare retention by traffic source, and the changes that most often move it.

Key takeaways

• Retention is measured from first open, per day: "Day 7" means people who opened the app on the seventh day, not "within" seven days.
• Google Play and App Store Connect count it differently. Compare each store with itself, not with the other.
• The most useful cut is retention by traffic source: it tells you which promotion channels bring users who stay.
• Most apps lose most new users within days. Measure the first session and the first week before spending more on installs.

What is an app retention rate?#

Retention answers a simple question: of the people who started using the app on a given day, how many came back on a later day? The convention is "Day N" retention, where Day 0 is the day of the first open.

• Day 1 retention: the share of new users who open the app again the next day. It mostly measures your first session and onboarding.
• Day 7 retention: whether the app became part of someone's week.
• Day 28 or Day 30 retention: whether the app has a lasting place on the phone.

Two details trip people up. First, most tools count exact-day ("classic") retention: a user who returns on day 6 and day 8 but not day 7 does not count for Day 7. Second, retention is a cohort number. You look at everyone who started on one day (or in one week) and follow that group forward, rather than mixing new and old users together.

Retention is not the same as retained installers, an older Play Console metric. Google defines retained installers as "Installers who kept your app on at least one of their devices for the number of days shown", and adds: "Installation doesn't mean that the app was opened over this period" (Play Console Help). An app can sit unopened on a phone for months. Retention, which requires an open, is the stricter and more honest number.

How Google Play measures retention in Play Console#

What changed in September 2026#

Google's Play Console "What's new" page lists the update for September 2026: new metrics for 2, 3, 14 and 28-day retention now sit alongside the existing 7-day metric in the Retention group on the Statistics page, and all of them can be broken down by the dimensions Play Console supports, including traffic source.

Before, you had one point on the curve. Now you have five: Day 2, 3, 7, 14 and 28. That is enough to see the shape of your retention curve, which matters more than any single point.

How Play Console counts retention#

Google's app statistics help defines each metric twice, once per user and once per device:

• User retention, for example 2-day: "The number of users who opened your app on any device on the second day after they first opened it."
• Device retention: "The number of devices on which your app was opened on the second day after it was first opened."

The 3, 7, 14 and 28-day metrics follow the same pattern. Google adds that "The retention event is counted on the day that it occurs" and that "Only the most recent first open event is considered", so a user who uninstalls and comes back starts a new clock. Some of these metrics are based on users who agreed to share data, and Google says the figures in Play Console "are adjusted to compensate for users who have opted out of data sharing."

Use user retention for product questions (are people coming back?) and device retention when you suspect a problem on particular hardware.

Where to find it#

In Play Console, open your app, go to Statistics, and choose a metric from the Retention group. Pick a date range, then add a breakdown: country, app version, Android version, device, and now traffic source. Play Console also has a separate set of engagement metrics, including 28-day returning users, which Google described in a 2021 announcement as "The percentage of your daily users who have also used your app in the previous 28 days."

Retention only counts an open: an app that stays installed but never gets unlocked again is not retained. Photo: I'm Zion / Pexels

How App Store Connect measures retention#

Apple's App retention help page defines it this way: "retention tells you the percentage of active devices that installed the app on the selected day and opened the app a certain number of days later."

The details that matter:

• Never-opened installs are excluded. "Users who install your app but never open it do not qualify, and are not counted in the numerator or the denominator of the calculation."
• It is a cohort table. "Rows represent cohorts of users who installed your app on the same day", columns are days since install, and an Average row summarizes the visible cohorts.
• It depends on opt-in. Retention "is based on usage data, which is collected only from users who have agreed to share diagnostics and usage information", and "Cells may remain blank if privacy thresholds are not met, or for new apps and low-volume cohorts." The page shows your opt-in rate history so you can judge how representative the table is.
• It can be filtered by app version, device, platform version, region, product page or In-App Event, and source or campaign where available.

Apple also offers peer group benchmarks, which compare your Day 1, Day 7 and Day 28 retention with similar apps at the 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles. Our guide to App Store Connect analytics walks through the Benchmarks and Cohorts sections.

Why your iOS and Android numbers will not match#

Apple counts devices that installed and opened, from opted-in users. Google counts users or devices from first open, adjusted for opt-outs. The populations differ, the opt-in rules differ, and the day boundaries differ. A 5-point gap between platforms tells you little. A 5-point drop on one platform after a release tells you a lot.

What is a good app retention rate?#

There is no universal answer, and benchmark tables online rarely say how they count. Three reference points are worth knowing:

1. Most users leave early. In a well-known analysis of anonymized Android data from Quettra, published by Andrew Chen, "the average app loses 77% of its DAUs within the first 3 days after the install. Within 30 days, it's lost 90% of DAUs. Within 90 days, it's over 95%" (andrewchen.com). The data is from 2015, but the shape still matches what developers report: a steep drop in the first days, then a flatter tail.
2. Category matters more than averages. A meditation app opened daily and a tax app opened twice a year should not share a target. Compare against apps that are used as often as yours.
3. Your peer group is the best benchmark you have. Apple's peer group benchmarks and Play Console's peer comparisons use apps similar to yours, measured the same way as your own numbers. Use them before any blog's table, including ours.

What to look for in your own curve: a curve that keeps falling toward zero means people try the app and drop it. A curve that flattens, even at a low level, means you have found a group of people who need the app. Your job is to make that flat part higher and reach it sooner.

Retention by traffic source: which promotion brings users who stay#

This is where retention becomes a promotion tool rather than a product metric. Both stores now let you split retention by where users came from:

• Google Play: add a traffic source breakdown to any retention metric in Statistics. To see individual campaigns, tag your links with UTM parameters, as described in our guide to promoting your app for free.
• App Store Connect: filter the retention table by source or campaign. Create campaign links (pt and ct parameters) for each place you share your App Store link.

Then compare channels side by side:

Example numbers for illustration only.

In this example, the directory brought more installs than the newsletter but almost nobody who stayed. Read it as a lesson about audience fit, not a verdict on the channel forever: the same table often shows that a smaller, better-matched audience is worth more than a big spike. Our where to submit your app guide and launch-week visibility checklist cover which sources tend to bring relevant users.

Retention by source also matters for ranking. Apple says App Store search ranking uses "user behavior (downloads, ratings and reviews, and more)", and Google has said it favors games with "strong engagement and retention metrics" in its charts, as covered in our post on App Store top charts. Users who stay keep using, rating and recommending the app; users who leave do none of that.

How to improve your app retention rate#

Fix Day 1 first: the first session#

Day 1 retention is mostly decided in the first few minutes. Watch a few people use the app for the first time without helping them, and look for the point where they stall.

• Get to the first useful result fast. If the app needs an account, data or setup before it does anything, find a way to show value before asking.
• Ask for permissions in context. Google's notification permission guide advises: "Before you ask users to grant any permissions, let them familiarize themselves with your app", and suggests triggering the prompt from a user action, such as tapping an alert bell. On Android 13 and higher, a newly installed app's "notifications are off by default", so a prompt dismissed in the first ten seconds can cost you your main way of bringing people back.
• Use provisional notifications on iOS. Apple's notification permission documentation describes provisional authorization, which sends notifications "on a trial basis": they are delivered quietly to the notification center's history, with buttons to keep or turn them off, so people can judge your notifications before deciding.

A reminder only works if the user allowed it. Ask for notification permission when the value is obvious, not at first launch. Photo: Solen Feyissa / Pexels

Then work on Day 7: build a reason to return#

• Tie notifications to something the user asked for: a reminder they set, a result that finished, a reply. Generic "we miss you" messages train people to turn notifications off.
• Give the app a natural cadence. Daily, weekly or monthly, make the app useful at the rhythm people actually need it, and say so in onboarding.
• Ship visible improvements. Release notes, a "what's new" screen and seasonal content give lapsed users a reason to look again.

Bring lapsed users back through the stores#

• In-App Events on the App Store can target lapsed users. Apple's In-App Events page lists "Bring back lapsed users" as an event purpose, defined as "people who downloaded your app but have not opened it recently", and says the App Store uses that choice when offering personalized recommendations. Our guide to getting featured on the App Store covers event timing.
• Win-back offers for auto-renewable subscriptions let you offer lapsed subscribers a discount to return; Apple documents them in StoreKit.
• Reviews are a retention signal too. People who leave a one-star review often stop using the app; a helpful reply sometimes brings them back. See our guide to responding to app reviews.

Keep the app stable#

Crashes are a quiet retention killer. On Android, Google's Android vitals sets bad behavior thresholds of a 1.09% user-perceived crash rate and a 0.47% user-perceived ANR rate overall, and 8% for either on a single phone model. If you exceed one, "Play may reduce the visibility of your title. Play may also show users a warning on your store listing." Check crash rates by app version alongside retention by app version after each release.

A weekly app retention routine#

• Look at Day 1 and Day 7 retention for last week's cohorts, on each platform separately.
• Break down by traffic source; note any channel far below the rest.
• Break down by app version after every release; a drop points at the release.
• Check the opt-in rate on App Store Connect before trusting a small cohort.
• Once a month, compare Day 28 with your peer group benchmark.
• Write down one change you will test to improve the first session, and check its cohort two weeks later.

Retention is what makes promotion worth paying for#

Every channel that brings installs, from store search and keyword ranking to launch directories and leaderboards, is only as good as the users it brings. Measure retention by source and you can stop guessing which ones to repeat. If you are testing a new market before a global release, our guide to soft launching an app shows how to use retention as the go or no-go signal.

AppRanker is one of those channels. Its app leaderboard ranks listings by what each has paid, and every row links straight to your App Store or Google Play page, so you can tag the link and see in your own retention table whether those visitors stay. To try it, paste your App Store or Google Play link on the AppRanker home page and every rank shows its price before you pay.

FAQ#

How do you calculate app retention rate?#

Take everyone who first opened the app on a given day, count how many opened it again on day N, and divide. For example, if 200 people first opened the app on Monday and 40 of them opened it the following Monday, Day 7 retention is 20%. Play Console and App Store Connect calculate this for you.

What is a good Day 1 retention rate for an app?#

It depends heavily on category and on how the stores count it, so the best benchmark is the peer group comparison inside App Store Connect or Play Console. As a rough guide, most apps lose a large share of new users within the first few days; what matters most is that your curve flattens and that each release improves on the last.

Where do I find retention in Google Play Console?#

Open your app, go to Statistics, and pick a metric from the Retention group. Since September 2026 the group includes 2, 3, 7, 14 and 28-day retention, and each can be broken down by country, app version, device and traffic source.

Why is my App Store Connect retention table empty?#

Retention only uses data from users who agreed to share diagnostics and usage information, and cells stay blank until enough users in a cohort have opted in. New apps and small daily cohorts often show blanks; widen the date range or wait for more installs.

Is retained installers the same as retention?#

No. Retained installers counts people who kept the app installed, whether or not they opened it. Retention counts people who actually opened the app on a later day, which is a better measure of real use.

Does retention affect App Store or Google Play ranking?#

The stores do not publish their formulas, but both say user behavior matters. Apple lists downloads, ratings and reviews among search ranking factors, and Google has said it considers engagement and retention when ranking games in its charts. Users who stay also rate and recommend the app, which helps indirectly.

Image credits#

• Cover, hand unlocking a phone next to a glass of tea: photo by Jakub Zerdzicki on Pexels, Pexels License. Cropped to 1200x630.
• Hand unlocking a phone showing 06:14: photo by I'm Zion on Pexels, Pexels License. Resized.
• iPhone showing an empty inbox: photo by Solen Feyissa on Pexels, Pexels License. Resized.