Revenue for subscription apps: what counts and how to calculate it

The chart plots two measures. Revenue adds every paid purchase, renewal and one-time purchase dated in the period, adds the ad revenue the SDK reported, and subtracts refunds on the day they were recorded. A refund recorded in March lowers March, even when the purchase was in February, and a reversed refund adds the money back on the reversal date. Transactions counts paid purchases, renewals and one-time purchases. Refunds do not reduce it, and ad revenue is not a transaction.

A free trial start carries no money, so it adds nothing until the trial converts. RevenueDot leaves out sandbox purchases (the Sandbox data switch, or environment=sandbox in the API, shows only those), promotional access you granted, and Family Sharing purchases. Every amount is converted to US dollars at the exchange rate of the purchase date. Pick another currency, such as currency=EUR, and RevenueDot converts that USD amount at the same date's rate. Periods are UTC: days start at 00:00 UTC and weeks start on Monday.

The revenue_type selector has three options. revenue is gross. proceeds is gross minus the store commission. revenue_net_of_taxes equals gross revenue, because the stores do not report tax on each purchase. You can filter or segment by app, store, product, product duration, offering, country, platform and app version, at day, week, month, quarter or year resolution.

Find it in the dashboard under Analytics > Charts, or call GET /v2/projects/{project_id}/charts/revenue with a secret key that has the charts_metrics:charts:read permission. The response has the same shape as RevenueCat's Charts API, so scripts written for it keep working. The charts guide lists every rule.

Illustrative numbers for one month. Revenue adds the four money lines and subtracts the refunds recorded in the month.

Revenue for March = 400 + 1,200 + 100 + 50 − 60 = $1,690.

Revenue is the number that pays for servers, ads and salaries, so it is the first place to look after a release, a price change or a campaign. A weekly line shows whether last week's paywall test moved money, and a segment by country shows where a price or localization change helped.

Revenue and MRR answer different questions. Revenue is cash received in the period, so an annual renewal lands in one month and makes the line jump. Use revenue to plan cash and judge a launch, and use MRR to judge the trend of the subscription base. If revenue falls while MRR holds, look at one-time purchases, ad revenue and refunds.

How to read it

• Annual plans arrive as one payment, so a month with many annual renewals looks like a spike. Read MRR for the trend and revenue for cash.
• Revenue includes ad revenue. For a subscription-only trend, read MRR. For ads alone, read the Ad Revenue chart.
• Refunds land on the refund date, so the latest month can dip when old purchases are refunded. Check the Refunds chart before you worry.
• Compare gross revenue with proceeds before you plan spending. Proceeds subtract the store commission.
• The current period is incomplete. It is marked with * in the dashboard and incomplete: true in the API.