Appstore and Google play overflow with apps. More and more new apps and games are thrown to market every day. Why would people want to do that? Apps make money. Lots of money. More than you have just imagined. More than some hedge funds do. If you think you probably could guess how much money some popular apps are making, you are definitely wrong.
Who do you think run the world? Games. Among 13 the most profitable apps on Appstore 11 of them are games. Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach and many other. Besides, if you want to realize your idea of an app with a high earning potential, read our coverage on building a custom application from scratch in our blog.
We’ve decided not to limit ourselves to games only and made an overview of both apps and games. Let’s run through the list of top grossing apps and games and clarify who is the real monster.
TINDER
Probably the best-known dating app, available in 30 languages and 196 countries. As of July 2015 Tinder user base counted 50 million users with half a million paid subscribers. According to Apptopia analytics Tinder makes $799K per month and this number is still growing. Approximately 5.8% of this revenue come from running ads. Being a free app, Tinder offers an unlimited number of “likes” (right swipes) for different prices according to age group. For example for a user of 28 and under the price is $9.99 per month. While for users over 28 the Tinder Plus subscription is $19.99 per month.
8 BALL POOL
A free pool games with in-app purchases, available for both iOS and Android devices. You can challenge your Miniclip or Facebook friends, or play with other players worldwide. This game does not seem so popular and you probably hear about it for the first time. However its monthly revenue is estimated $959K, 25.7% of which come from ads. 
BOOM BEACH
A freemium real-time strategy game, developed by Supercell (Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Hay Day), available on iOS and Android platforms. The games was launched in Canada in November 2013. The game soon was among top 10 games in 22 countries. An estimated income is $2,07 million per month. Not bad. Would you like to compare it to Clash of Clans? Be patient, this information is coming soon...
SUMMONERS WAR
The game is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), available in both markets. The game was created by Com2uS, a South Korean mobile and online development and publishing company. The game’s storyline is set in a fantasy world where a player can choose among 1000 of monsters to play with. Currently the game is available in 16 languages. Almost all revenue of Summoners War come from in-app purchases and only about 0.6% come from ads. Monthly revenue makes $2.42 million.
MARVEL: CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS
A free-to-play mobile fighting game, developed and published by Kabam, a Vancouver headquartered entertainment company. The game was released in December 20014. The game is set in the Marvel Universe. The app monthly revenue makes $2.9 million. Apart from the US, which of course brings the bigger part of this money, a great percentage of their revenue come from Russian and Japanese players.
CANDY CRUSH SAGA
Candy Crush Saga is a free-to-play match-three puzzle game released in April 2012 by King. The game is a variation of Candy Crush browser game where players swap coloured parts of candy to make a match of three or more of the same colour. The game makes its best out of its freemium model. While the game is absolutely free, players can buy special actions such as “extra moves” or “extra lives” to move further in the game. In 2014 Candy Crush Saga was played by more than 93 million people. A three month period revenue made over $493 million.
In May 2014 King released a sequel Candy Crush Soda Saga. As of October 2016 there were over 1100 levels of new game. Soon the Facebook version of game was released on Android and iOS platforms. By October 2015 the game was available on Windows 10 and Windows Phone. An iOS version monthly income makes $2.87 million.
SLOTOMANIA CASINO - LAS VEGAS FREE SLOT MACHINE GAMES
As long as humanity exists, its history is filled with entertainments based on games of chance. That’s why gambling games will never go out of date. Today, when the world has turned mobile, casinos has turned mobile as well. An Israeli startup called Playtika, founded in 2010, was a pioneer of freemium social and mobile games. Today Playtika has offices in US, Canada, Japan, Australia, Ukraine and many other countries. One of the most popular mobile games Slotomania average monthly downloads make about 406K, with a little under $2 million of monthly revenue.
SPOTIFY MUSIC
Some time ago we used to say that life without music would be a mistake. Today we say life without Spotify would be a mistake (well, at least it sounds so pathetic, so let's’ pretend that’s true). Lots of people worldwide choose Spotify as the best online music streaming app. It’s quite convenient. You can buy a Premium, ad free subscription or a Family subscription and share the price between up to 6 people. With about 30 million of songs available, Spotify makes about $7,71 million per month. Compare Spotify to Pandora with a little over 1 million of songs and $1.2 million on monthly income.
MOBILE STRIKE
Mobile Strike is a freemium multiplayer online strategy. MS was published in 2015. With a great advertising campaign (featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a commander) it became one of the top-grossing apps in 2015 and 2016. However, the game was met with criticism by reviewers. Andrew Hayward of Macworld concluded the game was not worth the hassle or payment. Anyway the game’s monthly revenue make about $873K.
GAME OF WAR – FIRE AGE (IOS)
The same as previous game Game of War - Fire age was developed by Machine Zone, Inc. (MZ), a privately held technology company, based in California. The game was published in 2013. By March 2015, it was in the top 10 most downloaded free apps on both the iOS Appstore and Google Play. Game of war can be called a real beast as its monthly revenue is $11 million. If you are wondering how that is possible, here is a little secret. Machine Zone, the game's developer, spent approximately $40 million on marketing Game of War - Fire Age in 2014. The company had more than 550 employees in its Palo Alto headquarters and around the world as of October 2015. In November 2016, the company's CEO described it as "probably the world’s largest direct response marketer and largest single product marketer on mobile,” employing 200 marketers for its mobile games.
CLASH OF CLANS
Even if you are not big fan of mobile games, there is at least one name that you definitely have heard of. Clash of Clans. It is a freemium mobile strategy video game developed and published by Supercell. The game was released for iOS platform in 2012, and for Android in 2013. The game storyline is set in a fantasy world where the player is a chief of a village. Players build a community, train troops, and attack other players to earn gold, elixir and Dark Elixir.
Clash of Clans got positive reviews and high ratings from many critics. Many reviewers liked Clash of Clans' gameplay but some disliked the way the freemium model was presented. Anyway, despite this fact between December 2012 and May 2013 Clash of Clans became an App Store top 5 download. In 2013, Clash of Clans was known to be the third-highest game in revenue generated on the App Store and number one on Google Play.
In February 2014 the game was generating $654,000 in daily revenue for Supercell. In 2015, the game was the top grossing app on both the App Store and Google Play, with an estimated revenue of 1.5 million dollars per day.
POKEMON GO
Pokemon Go, a product of collaboration of Nintendo and Niantic, was released in July 2016. The game utilizes mobile device’s GPS ability to locate and capture virtual creatures, Pokemons. Despite some negative reviews the game became a global phenomenon with more than 500 million downloads worldwide.
The game became the most downloaded app on App Store on their first week. It was downloaded more than 10 million times within a week of release. By the end of July the game generated more than $160 million in revenue through in-game purchases. A daily revenue that month made around $10 million.
Currently Pokemon Go daily revenue is reported to be around $2 million per day. The game was awarded five Guinness World Records and caused a great impact on society.
