How we track app prices

Sources, refresh cadence, event classification, and what we mean by “free”.

Where does the price data come from?

Sensor Tower analytics for download and ranking signal, plus daily snapshots of US App Store metadata (price, in-app purchase status, version) for every app in our active monitoring pool. All prices on this site are US App Store, USD.

How often does the data refresh?

Pricing snapshots run daily at 07:00 UTC via our automated pipeline. Version, rating, and ranking signals refresh on a weekly cycle. Each price-history page records the freshest event date in the timeline above the verdict block.

How are price events classified?

We tag every price change as one of four event types: free_promo (price went to $0 from a non-zero baseline), price_cut (paid app dropped to a lower paid tier), price_back (price recovered toward baseline), or price_increase. Pages display only free_promo and price_cut in the event list — those are the buy-signal events.

How do you define "free"?

A free_promo means the app cost > $0 and is now $0 — a temporary promotion. Apps that are permanently free with in-app purchases (the "freemium" model) get a separate Freemium label and never enter the free_promo count. We don't want a freemium app to look like it's on sale.

See also our buy-once methodology and deals methodology.