Subscription App Revenue by Country: North America Earns 4-5x India and Southeast Asia

The short answer: North America is deepest, India and Southeast Asia thinnest, by 4 to 5x

Subscription app revenue by country is deepest in North America and thinnest in India and Southeast Asia. The gap runs 4 to 5x on most axes (RevenueCat State of Subscription Apps 2026, 115,000 apps). North American developers earn $32 of year-one value per payer. India and Southeast Asia earn $14, which is 2.3x less. The global median sits at $23 and Western Europe at $25.

The install-side gaps are wider still. North America converts 2.8% of downloads to paid by D35 against 0.7% in India and Southeast Asia, and it earns roughly 5x the revenue per install. One region is the exception on growth, not depth: LATAM posts the fastest median growth of any developer region. We walk each axis below.

Revenue per payer: North America earns $32, India and Southeast Asia $14

Year-one revenue per payer (RLTV) is the cleanest measure of what a paying user is worth. By the developer's headquarters, North America leads at $32, about 40% above the $23 global median (RevenueCat SOSA 2026). India and Southeast Asia sit at $14, so a North American payer is worth 2.3x an India-or-Southeast-Asia one. Western Europe lands at $25, just above the global line.

This axis is measured by where the developer is based, not where the user is, so read it as a proxy for the markets a developer sells into. It tracks the same shape as overall app economics: a thin top tail earns most of the money. For the full distribution of what apps make, see how much money subscription apps make.

Conversion by geography: 2.8% in North America, 0.7% in India and Southeast Asia

Download-to-paid at D35 is the share of installs that become payers within 35 days. By the user's region, North America leads at 2.8% (P90 10.9%), then Asia-Pacific at 2.4%, the global median at 2.0%, and India and Southeast Asia at 0.7% (RevenueCat SOSA 2026). That's a 4x gap between the top and bottom regions.

The P90 of 10.9% in North America matters as much as the median. It says the ceiling in a rich market is high, so the same funnel that converts 2.8% at the median can convert far more with strong execution. In a 0.7%-median market, the same execution has far less room to work with.

Revenue per install by geography: the widest gap, roughly 5x

Revenue per install (RPI) folds conversion and price into one number: dollars earned per download. By geography it shows the widest regional gap in the report. North America earns $0.38 per install at D14 and $0.55 at D60, with a P90 of $3.19 (RevenueCat SOSA 2026). India and Southeast Asia earn $0.08 at D14 and $0.11 at D60. That's roughly 5x, and it's the number that sets your paid-acquisition math.

RPI is what you can afford to pay for a user. If a North American install returns $0.55 by D60 and an India-or-Southeast-Asia install returns $0.11, the cost-per-install you can bid differs by 5x before your funnel changes anything. Category stacks on top of geography here. For the category view, see revenue per install by app category.

The gap starts at the top: download-to-trial by region

The regional gap isn't only at the payment step. It starts at the trial. Download-to-trial is 7.1% in North America, 5.7% in Asia-Pacific, and 5.0% in Western Europe (RevenueCat SOSA 2026). India and Southeast Asia, LATAM, MEA, and the rest of the world all cluster between 3.0% and 3.7%. Fewer users in thin markets even start a trial.

Then the same regions convert those trials at different rates. North America turns 34.2% of trials into paid subscriptions; India and Southeast Asia turn 15.2% (RevenueCat SOSA 2026). The gap compounds at every step, so a weaker install-to-trial rate meets a weaker trial-to-paid rate and the totals diverge fast. For the by-category view of that step, see trial-to-paid conversion benchmarks.

The one reversal: LATAM grows fastest, MEA shrinks

Depth today and growth tomorrow are different rankings, and this is where the map flips. By developer headquarters, LATAM posts the highest median MRR growth of any region, +17.2% (RevenueCat SOSA 2026). MEA is the only region with a negative median, -9.7%. So the regions with the thinnest revenue today are not a single block.

This is the deciding variable for anyone choosing where to expand. North America is the depth play: highest per-payer value, highest conversion, highest RPI. LATAM is the momentum play: low revenue per user today, but the fastest-growing median. Neither reading is wrong. They answer different questions, and a market you enter for growth needs a longer payback horizon than one you enter for depth.

Point acquisition at the money before you tune the funnel

Where your installs come from sets your revenue ceiling before your funnel does. A perfect funnel on $0.11 installs still loses to an average funnel on $0.55 installs, so the first growth lever is often geographic, not mechanical.

If you're building those market-specific flows with an AI coding agent, tasu's MCP is the conversion-expertise layer it calls while it builds: the geography benchmarks above, with sources, on tap in your editor.

• Weight paid acquisition toward high-RPI regions. North America returns about 5x the revenue per install of India and Southeast Asia, so it can carry a 5x higher cost-per-install before the math breaks
• Read a cheap install market as a growth bet, not a revenue bet. LATAM's +17.2% median growth is the reason to be there; the low RPI is the reason to cap spend until it climbs
• Own more of your distribution so you're not only renting installs from the store auction. The web-to-app funnel is how top-tier apps do it
• Once you know which markets you're keeping, stop shipping one global paywall. Localizing the paywall by country beat a one-size design by 20% in Japan and lifted trial starts 30% in LATAM in the same dataset