ChatGPT Marks a Big Milestone! The Highest Earning Apps in April
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AI is the big story of 2025, and we can see that in terms of revenue on the App Store and Google Play in April just like we did with downloads. Except, the numbers are even bigger!
I crunched the numbers and ranked the highest-earning apps in the world in April.
Can you guess who's in the lead?
TikTok! (of course)
According to our App Intelligence, TikTok was the highest-earning mobile app in the world in April, bringing in $329M of net revenue from the App Store and Google Play.
TikTok's revenue dominance has been on display for several years now, and never not by a lot. The gap grew even larger in April as TikTok's net revenue rose above $300M for just the second time ever.
Technically the US is still trying to force Bytedance to sell it, but I don't know if that'll ever happen...
In second place we're used to seeing YouTube, which has been the second place finisher for nearly as long as TikTok has worn the crown. But... not in April.
ChatGPT was the second highest earning app in April for the first time, adding $148M of net revenue to its bottom line, according to our estimates. Net means what OpenAI gets to keep after Apple and Google take their fees.
AI is in high demand and ChatGPT is to AI what Google is to web search (for now). Even though it faces competition from xAI, Meta, and others, it's clear that ChatGPT is in a league of its own, and that's how it managed to jump into 2nd from 6th and grow its revenue by 50% in a single month.
YouTube came in third with $131M of net revenue, according to our estimates. Unlike TikTok and ChatGPT who saw revenue balloon in April, YouTube's net revenue shrunk by more than 23% and back to 2024 levels.
Tinder and Disney+ round out the top five highest earners. Tinder's revenue is up while Disney+'s is down, showing there's no trend of decline, but apps have to really work for it.
According to our estimates, the top 10 highest-earning apps raked in a total of $1.2B of net revenue (after fees) in April, a small but important increase from March of 3.4%. Considering downloads took a nosedive in April, this growth, even if only in the single digits, is a great sign for developers and publishers.
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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.
