RPI (revenue per install)

Formula

Total revenue / installs (at day N)

Unit

$

Models

Subscription, Gaming

What it is

RPI (Revenue Per Install) measures cumulative revenue generated per install by a fixed post-install day, typically D7, D30, or D60. The formula is total revenue attributed to a cohort divided by the number of installs in that cohort, at day N post-install.

How to calculate it

For a given install cohort, sum all revenue generated up to day N (IAP, subscriptions, ads) and divide by the number of installs in that cohort. Day N must be held constant for cohort-to-cohort comparisons. D60 is a common horizon for subscription apps because it captures most early conversion and first renewals.

Why it matters

RPI is the primary unit economics bridge between UA spend and revenue recovery. Comparing D60 RPI against cost-per-install (CPI) directly indicates whether a campaign is cash-flow positive by day 60. It also lets product teams compare monetization architectures — hard paywalls vs. freemium — on equal footing, stripping out differences in pricing to compare revenue efficiency per install.

Benchmarks & pitfalls

According to RevenueCat (2026), hard paywall apps generate a D60 RPI of approximately $3.09, compared to approximately $0.38 for freemium apps — roughly an 8x difference. This gap reflects both higher conversion rates and faster conversion timing for hard paywalls. The key pitfall is comparing RPI figures at different day horizons — a freemium app's D60 RPI will look worse than a hard paywall's D7 RPI even if the freemium product has superior long-term LTV. Always specify the day N when reporting RPI, and pair it with retention curves to understand whether early revenue comes at the cost of downstream churn.