Out of those 32k installs what’s your current number of daily active users?
How many of your DAU have used the app on 7 of the last 14 days, say?
Being brutal, if you’ve only got 10-20 daily active users after 32000+ installs then all the data analysis you’re doing is just hocus pocus.
You’re focusing on entirely the wrong problem. Your issue isn’t monetisation, it’s user acquisition and retention.
Of those 10-20 DAU, probably 8-10 are the power users who use it 7/7 days (Level 100+ users, CV <0.5). So yes, sticky users exist but they're <0.1% of installs.
I'm not 'focusing on monetization' - I gave up on retention months ago. Tried:
- 4 onboarding rebuilds - AI coaching - Gamification (quests, XP) - WearOS app - Daily notifications - Early wins in first session
D1 retention stayed at 4.2% through all of it. Nothing moved the needle.
So I shifted to: 'Can I monetize the 10-20 who stuck?' Answer: No. They won't pay because free tier is complete.
You're saying I should fix retention first. Fair. But after months of trying and 0.0% improvement, at what point do you accept the category is broken or the product doesn't work for 99% of people?
The 'hocus pocus' analysis was trying to understand if the 1% who stick have patterns I can replicate. They do (regular schedule + high cognitive load). But I can't find more of them or get them to pay.
If you truly believe that regular schedule and high cognitive load are the “sticky” that makes it work then you need to market to people using those points.
What’s your marketing strategy currently?
On the “when should I give up” point… who are your competitors?
Marketing strategy: None, really. 99% organic from Play/App Store discovery. Spent $1,300 on ads over 3 years, negligible results. No content marketing (tried, spent ~20k$ on an instagram account, gained 50 followers), no SEO, no outreach (apart from irregular reddit shills). Just ship features and hope App Store algorithms pick it up.
Had one viral spike in Poland (June 2025, ~1,600 users) but don't know the source - maybe a YouTuber review, maybe App Store featuring. GA4 misattributed it to paid ads which didn't exist.
Competitors: - Free: Habitica (gamified), Todoist, Google Tasks - Freemium: Productive, Habitify, Strides (3-5 free habits, pay for more) - Paid upfront: Streaks ($5 one-time) - Coaching: Fabulous ($70/year), Noom ($60/month) - Niche: Focus Bear (ADHD), Routinery ($4/mo, routines focused)
The irony: I think I accidentally built something that works for a specific archetype (regular schedules + decision fatigue), but I've been marketing it as a general habit tracker to everyone. Which explains the 4.2% D1 retention - 95% are wrong-fit users.
But I can't niche down based on 9 users who won't even respond to my emails.
That aside (as it isn’t necessarily important) I think you need to find three things that represent the “sweet spot” for your app and try marketing around those.
Sadly I don’t think it’s possible to scale what is effectively a commodity app with plenty of competition without having a strong purpose, and without actively marketing.
I’m not sure todoist is your competitor. I use todoist. I use it because it allows me to create tasks and assign them to people and then it gets out of the way. I pay for the team plan (pro plan?) where I can assign to half a dozen folk.
Fabulous is very interesting - I got sucked in on a deal. Quickly realised it is VERY woo woo and aimed at a certain female focused audience. As a very non woo woo non-female I found the ‘coaching’ very not for me.