How often do paid iPhone apps go free? What our data shows
A few days ago Appollow's error tracker caught 20 failed price checks in about an hour. I looked up 13 of the apps behind them and 11 had been pulled from the App Store, their pages just returned a 404.
That got me curious about the rest of the database, so I went through all of it. These are the numbers for 6,821 apps as of October 19, 2026, and they refresh once a day.
Where the numbers come from
An app gets into Appollow when someone posts it. Most of the feed is imported from deal accounts on X, the rest is submitted by people using the site. The first app went up in February 2022, but the feed only really got going in 2023. Prices come from Apple's lookup for the US App Store, in US dollars.
One limit: for each app we keep its current price and its latest price change, not every change it ever had. So the counts below are apps, not deals, and an app that went free five times counts once.
How many paid iPhone apps go free?
We recorded a price drop on 1,524 of the 6,821 apps, about 22%. Of those:
- 763 are still free today
- 491 cost money again
- 270 aren't on the App Store anymore
Still free doesn't always mean the deal is still running. Sometimes a developer drops the price for good, and from the price alone the two look the same.
What did they cost before the deal?
For 552 of those apps, the last change we saw was the drop itself, so we know the price right before it. The median was $2.19. 175 of them (32%) were under a dollar and 98 (18%) cost $5 or more.
Is there a best day to find free iPhone apps?
Not one worth planning around. I counted the day each app first showed up in the feed, in UTC. The busiest was Monday with 1,090 apps and the quietest was Tuesday with 920, a gap of 18%, and the other five days sit in between. Since that's the day a deal got posted, not exactly the day a developer started it, I wouldn't read much into a gap that size.
Do apps that go free have in-app purchases?
Less often than the rest. Of the apps with a recorded drop that are still listed, 38% have in-app purchases and 14% have a subscription. Across everything still listed it's 48% and 22%. We read both from the App Store page when an app is posted and when we re-check a paid app's price, so an app that added a subscription since then can look clean until the next check.
Which kinds of apps go free most?
The top three among apps with a recorded drop are Utilities (380), Photo & Video (266), Productivity (218). Games barely show up in the feed at all, so don't read this as a picture of the whole App Store.
How many apps disappear from the App Store?
At least 1,238 of the 6,821 apps we've listed, about 18%. We mark an app removed only when its App Store page returns a 404 and Apple's lookup comes back empty, so a slow or rate-limited response doesn't count. We only re-check an app when it's paid or when someone opens its page on Appollow, so this is the minimum.
That's why I grab a free app as soon as I see it, even if I don't need it yet. Once it's in your purchase history you can redownload it later.
FAQ
How often do paid iPhone apps go free?
On Appollow we've recorded a price drop on 1,524 of the 6,821 apps listed, about 22%. That counts apps, not deals: an app that went free five times counts once.
What's the best day to look for free iPhone apps?
Not one worth planning around. Deals get posted all week, and the busiest and quietest days are 18% apart.
How much do iPhone apps cost before they go free?
The median was $2.19, across 552 apps where we know the price right before the drop. 32% were under $1 and 18% cost $5 or more.
Do apps get removed from the App Store?
Yes. At least 1,238 of the apps Appollow has listed, about 18%, are no longer on the US App Store.
If you'd rather get the next deal as a notification, here's how to set that up.