Storage Cleaner Apps is a Multi Million Dollar Industry No One's Talking About
This is a single insight from This Week in Apps - Apple's Next Sherlock?. Check out the full article for more insights.
I'm on the lookout for categories of apps that "print" money for their makers and represent a potential opportunity for developers who want to get into proven niches.
A few weeks ago I uncovered identifier apps and this week I found a new category: Storage cleaners.
According to data from Appfigures Explorer, consumers spent nearly $40M on storage cleaner apps in the last month. Much more than I'd expected.
There are a little over 1,500 storage cleaning apps across the App Store and Google Play, and all revolve around organizing/deduplicating/compressing photos. Some offer additional "cleaning" features like compressing videos, and others offer miscellaneous features like built-in ad blockers. But the main goal is to remove unnecessary photos to save space.
A feature Apple can easily sherlock next week. But it probably won't.
Here's what's interesting, more than half of all apps and more than 95% of the revenue is on the App Store. While there are a few hundred apps on Google Play most don't generate much revenue.
That's because most Android devices come with some of these features built in, making it a great opportunity for iOS developers.
We've seen this before with QR code scanners, which are built into Android and not iOS (well, at least), and are generating millions on the App Store.
Available natively on Android but not on iOS = opportunity.
Money Please
How big is this opportunity? Our App Intelligence shows 161 cleaner apps grossed at least $1,000 last month, 42 more than $100K, and 7 more than $1M.
There's a ton of competition, but because there's very little brand affinity in this category and most icons looking fairly identical, users will download what they see first, and there are quite a few ways for developers to achieve that.
I analyzed the top earners on the App Store, which include: Cleanup, Cleaner Guru, AI Cleaner, Cleaner Kit, Swipewipe, Phone Cleaner, Powerful Cleaner, Cleanup App, Cleaner, and Cleaner AI.
We estimate that the group grossed $197M in 2024 and is on track to double that in 2025 having already earned more than half in the first five months of the year and growing rapidly.
Organic Or Paid?
I looked into how these apps are promoting themselves within the App Store to see if App Store Optimization or Apple Ads are required to succeed, and based on the data the clear answer is both.
The top 10 earners run Apple Ads campaigns with thousands of keywords in the US, where the majority of revenue is coming from. But that's not it, each is also ranked in thousands of keywords organically. Looking at their names it's clear that's not by accident.
Should you build a storage cleaning app? Maybe! The niche is very competitive and already has one clear leader, but lots of competitors are still making money. The key to building for a niche isn't necessarily following the hottest trend but rather finding the right niche.
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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.
