Mobile App Earnings Calculator.

What this calculator does

Estimate the monthly business economics of a mobile app: advertising, subscriptions and in-app purchases, minus their platform fees and your operating expenses. The primary result is net monthly profit, including a clearly labeled loss when expenses exceed revenue.

Formula

Billable impressions

DAU × Days × Sessions per active user/day × Ads per session × Fill rate ÷ 100

Ad revenue

Billable impressions ÷ 1,000 × eCPM

Paying subscribers

MAU × Paid conversion ÷ 100

Subscription gross revenue

Paying subscribers × Monthly subscription price

Subscription platform fees

Subscription gross revenue × Subscription fee ÷ 100

Subscription net revenue

Subscription gross revenue − Subscription platform fees

Purchasing users

MAU × IAP purchaser conversion ÷ 100

IAP gross revenue

Purchasing users × Purchases per purchaser/month × Average purchase value

IAP platform fees

IAP gross revenue × IAP fee ÷ 100

IAP net revenue

IAP gross revenue − IAP platform fees

Total gross revenue

Ad revenue + Subscription gross revenue + IAP gross revenue

Total platform fees

Subscription platform fees + IAP platform fees

Revenue after platform fees

Total gross revenue − Total platform fees

Operating expenses

Hosting + AI/API + Marketing + Support + Other operating costs

Net monthly profit

Revenue after platform fees − Operating expenses

Annualized gross revenue / profit

Monthly gross revenue × 12 / Net monthly profit × 12

Profit margin

Net monthly profit ÷ Total gross revenue × 100; not defined when gross revenue is zero

Revenue per MAU

Total gross revenue ÷ MAU; not defined when MAU is zero

Methodology

Advertising uses average DAU × days, never MAU × DAU. Sessions and ads per session create opportunities; fill rate converts opportunities to billable impressions. Publisher eCPM is applied once. Subscription and IAP audiences are each a share of MAU and can overlap, since a subscriber may also buy an item. Each stream has its own platform fee; operating expenses are deducted separately, once.

Percentages use 0–100 inputs and divide by 100. Calculations do not round intermediate values. USD displays to two decimals, so rounded components can differ by a cent. Counts can be fractional expected averages; large values are floating-point estimates.

Inputs

• Monthly active users — MAU; allowed range 0–100,000,000. Unique monthly users. Subscriptions and IAP use this audience.
• Daily active users — DAU; allowed range 0–100,000,000. Average active users per day; must not exceed MAU. Ads use DAU, not MAU × DAU.
• Days in modeled month — days; allowed range 1–31. Used only to turn daily ad activity into monthly impressions.
• Sessions per active user/day — sessions; allowed range 0–1,000. Average daily sessions for a daily active user.
• Ads per session — ads; allowed range 0–1,000. Ad opportunities averaged across all sessions, including any ad-free users.
• Ad fill rate — %; allowed range 0–100. Share of ad opportunities that become billable impressions.
• Ad eCPM — $/1,000; allowed range 0–10,000,000. Realized publisher revenue per 1,000 billable impressions; do not deduct platform share again.
• Paid conversion rate — %; allowed range 0–100. Current paying subscribers as a share of MAU, not new subscriber acquisition.
• Monthly subscription price — $/month; allowed range 0–10,000,000. Monthly revenue per paying subscriber before the subscription platform fee.
• Subscription platform fee — %; allowed range 0–100. Applied once, to gross subscription revenue only.
• IAP purchaser conversion — %; allowed range 0–100. Share of MAU making purchases this month. May overlap with subscribers.
• Average purchase value — $/purchase; allowed range 0–10,000,000. Average gross value of one in-app purchase.
• Purchases per purchaser/month — purchases; allowed range 0–1,000. Average number of purchases per purchasing user in the month.
• IAP platform fee — %; allowed range 0–100. Applied once, to gross IAP revenue only.
• Hosting — $/month; allowed range 0–10,000,000. Monthly operating expense, excluding platform fees. Held fixed in reverse solving.
• AI/API — $/month; allowed range 0–10,000,000. Monthly operating expense, excluding platform fees. Held fixed in reverse solving.
• Marketing — $/month; allowed range 0–10,000,000. Monthly operating expense, excluding platform fees. Held fixed in reverse solving.
• Support — $/month; allowed range 0–10,000,000. Monthly operating expense, excluding platform fees. Held fixed in reverse solving.
• Other operating costs — $/month; allowed range 0–10,000,000. Monthly operating expense, excluding platform fees. Held fixed in reverse solving.
• Monthly subscriber churn — %; allowed range 0–100. Optional forecast only. Month 1 is unchanged; no replacement subscribers in months 2–12.

Outputs

Billable impressions, estimated subscribers and purchasers; ad revenue; subscription gross revenue, platform fees and net revenue; IAP gross revenue, platform fees and net revenue; total gross revenue; total platform fees; revenue after platform fees; operating expenses; net monthly profit; annualized gross revenue and profit; profit margin relative to gross revenue; and gross revenue per MAU. Margin is not defined at zero gross revenue; revenue per MAU is not defined at zero MAU.

Assumptions

DAU drives ads; MAU drives subscribers and IAP purchasers. Days, activity and rates are visible assumptions. DAU cannot exceed MAU. Subscriber churn affects only the separate 12-month forecast, with no replacement subscribers. Annualized values are snapshot × 12. Reverse solving holds DAU/MAU and monthly operating expenses fixed. Taxes, refunds, growth and cost scaling are excluded. All rates are editable examples, not verified platform rates.

DAU must be no greater than MAU. Ads per session average over all sessions, including ad-free paid users. Reduce that average if some users see no ads. Current paid conversion is a paying share of MAU, not an acquisition funnel. Operating expenses are monthly totals; do not enter platform fees again as an operating expense.

Example

With 25,000 MAU, 5,000 DAU, 30 days, 2 sessions/day, 2 ads/session and 75% fill: 450,000 billable impressions × $4/1,000 = $1,800 ads. A 2% paid share gives 500 subscribers × $5 = $2,500 gross; a 15% fee is $375, leaving $2,125. A 1% IAP share gives 250 purchasers × 1 purchase × $3 = $750 gross; a 15% fee is $112.50, leaving $637.50. Gross revenue is $5,050; platform fees are $487.50; revenue after fees is $4,562.50. Hosting $300 + AI/API $100 + marketing $500 + support $200 + other $100 = $1,200 operating expenses. Net monthly profit is $3,362.50; annualized gross revenue is $60,600 and profit is $40,350. Margin is approximately 66.58%; gross revenue per MAU is $0.202.

Reverse targets and sensitivity

Monthly revenue targets mean gross revenue before platform fees. Monthly profit targets mean profit after platform fees and operating expenses. The solver keeps the current DAU/MAU ratio, monetization rates and monthly expenses fixed. Gross revenue per MAU = current gross revenue ÷ current MAU. After-fee revenue per MAU = current revenue after fees ÷ current MAU. Required MAU for gross revenue = target ÷ gross revenue per MAU; required MAU for profit = (target + operating expenses) ÷ after-fee revenue per MAU. A bounded search verifies the target within 100 iterations and 100 million MAU. Impossible targets show “Not achievable under the current assumptions.” Zero MAU requires a nonzero audience first to establish an activity ratio.

The applied answer rounds MAU up to a whole user and scales average DAU proportionally; the resulting achieved target is shown. Sensitivity changes MAU, paid conversion, eCPM or IAP conversion by −20%, −10%, 0%, +10% or +20%, capped at valid bounds. MAU changes scale DAU proportionally. The +1 percentage-point paid-conversion example is a separate absolute change, not a 1% relative change.

Churn forecast

Churn does not reduce the current snapshot. Forecast month m has current subscribers × (1 − churn/100)^(m − 1), for m = 1 through 12. Subscription gross revenue equals that cohort × price. Month 1 is unchanged; churn starts in month 2 with no replacement subscribers. Churned subscribers remain in MAU as free users; DAU, ads, IAP and operating expenses remain constant. Forecast totals sum those twelve months. Annualized revenue and profit remain the original snapshot × 12 and are not mislabeled as a churn forecast.

Limitations

This is a planning model, not a guaranteed outcome. It excludes taxes, refunds, growth, regional billing differences and automatically scaling costs. Fixed-cost reverse estimates may become unrealistic at a large audience; update expenses for the scale you are planning. Fill and eCPM must refer to the same billable inventory. No audience-growth, subscriber-acquisition or DAU retention forecast is implied. Conservative, Base and Aggressive presets are examples, not benchmarks; all proposed input changes are visible before applying.

Sources

USER-ENTERED: all audience values, prices, rates and costs are editable illustrative assumptions. No current Apple, Google, advertising-network or other platform rate is asserted. Use your own contracts, billing data and analytics. The formulas and worked example document arithmetic, not external market evidence.

FAQ

Last reviewed

2026-10-12 — model 2 implementation review, not verification of platform prices.