Short answer: Organic install share follows a U-shape. Small apps are mostly organic, mid-sized apps lean hardest on paid, and the largest apps drift back towards organic. Among Indian app startups, the median moves from about 56% organic under 50k installs to about 75% at 500k installs and above.
What does app size mean in these benchmarks?
App size here is an app's cumulative install count over the measurement window, grouped into bands such as "under 50k" or "500k+". It is a proxy for growth stage, not for revenue or team size.
Size matters for benchmarking because apps at different stages run different growth models:
- Early apps live on launch traffic, referrals and store discovery.
- Mid-sized apps have usually found product fit and are scaling with paid.
- Large apps have brand demand and store ranking working for them.
Comparing a 20k-install app with the overall median mixes all three together.
How does organic share change as an app grows?
Organic share falls as apps start scaling with paid, bottoms out in the middle stages, then rises again once brand demand takes over. The low point sits between about 10k and 500k installs in both the global and Indian data.
The Indian startup curve
Median organic share and the middle half of apps by size, from Linkrunner's published research on Indian startups:
| App size | Median organic share | Middle half of apps |
|---|---|---|
| Under 50k installs | about 56% | about 12% to 83% |
| 50k to 200k | about 58% | about 35% to 84% |
| 200k to 500k | about 80% | about 75% to 84% |
| 500k+ | about 75% | about 61% to 89% |
What stands out:
- Small apps vary enormously. Under 50k installs, the middle half of apps ranges from about 12% to about 83% organic. Some are fully paid-led from day one; others have barely started spending.
- The range narrows as apps grow. By 500k installs, most apps sit between about 61% and 89% organic.
- The 200k to 500k band is directional. It is a small group, so its tight range should not be read as a rule.
The global curve
The global dataset uses finer bands at the small end and shows the same shape:
| App size | Median organic share |
|---|---|
| Under 1k installs | about 93% |
| 1k to 10k | about 85% |
| 10k to 50k | about 65% |
| 50k to 500k | about 64% |
| 500k+ | about 72% |
- The steepest fall is between 10k and 50k installs, about 20 percentage points.
- The plateau runs from 10k to 500k, where the typical app gets about a third of installs from paid.
- Indian startups sit lower across the board, which matches the lower overall median (about 62% organic in India against about 83% globally).
For category and size views together, see organic vs paid installs, and compare the India and global editions.
Does conversion change with size too?
Yes, and in the opposite direction. Median install to signup rate for Indian startups is about 22% to 24% for apps under 200k installs, and about 14% to 15% for apps above that.
- Larger apps tend to reach broader audiences, including more casual installers who never register.
- Smaller apps tend to attract more intent-led users, who searched for the app or were referred.
- So a falling signup rate at scale is normal. Benchmark against apps of your size, not the overall median. See the install to signup benchmarks.
How to use these benchmarks
- Find your band. Use your cumulative installs over a comparable window.
- Compare with the median and the middle half, not just the median. Outside the middle half is worth a closer look, not a cause for panic.
- Check direction over time. An app moving from 10k to 50k installs should expect organic share to fall as paid scales. If it does not fall, ask whether paid is being measured at all.
- Watch the swing back. Past 500k installs, rising organic share is expected. If yours keeps falling, paid may be cannibalising installs you would have got anyway.
Why your curve might look different
- Category. Gaming apps among Indian startups are heavily paid at the median, while food and beverage apps are mostly organic. See what a good organic share is by category.
- Tracking gaps. Untracked influencer links, QR codes and WhatsApp shares inflate organic at every size.
- Launch spikes. A press moment or store feature can make a small app look unusually organic for a few months.
Measure organic properly as you scale
Organic share is only as accurate as the attribution behind it, because organic is whatever cannot be matched to a campaign. As paid spend grows, that residual gets more expensive to get wrong. An MMP such as Linkrunner, Tenjin or Kochava keeps paid and organic separated as you scale.
The size bands above come from Linkrunner's State of Mobile App Growth report for Indian startups, which also breaks the data down by category.
FAQ
Do bigger apps get more organic installs? In share terms, the largest apps are more organic than mid-sized ones but less organic than very small apps. The median Indian startup with 500k or more installs gets about 75% of installs organically, against about 56% for apps under 50k.
At what size do apps rely most on paid installs? The low point for organic share sits between about 10k and 500k installs. In the global data, the typical app in that range gets about a third of its installs from paid.
Why are very small apps so organic? Before about 1k installs, most apps have not started paid campaigns, so almost everything comes from launch traffic, referrals and store search. The global median at that size is about 93% organic.
Why do large apps become more organic again? At scale, brand recognition, store ranking and word of mouth generate installs without ad spend. Paid still matters, but it becomes a smaller share of a larger total.
Should a small app worry about a low organic share? Not on its own. Small Indian apps vary from about 12% to about 83% organic in the middle half, so a paid-led small app is common; what matters is whether cost per signup pays back.