![10.35 Data Points: What the Average App Collects [2026]](/_astro/how-much-data-does-the-average-app-collect.C07uBfpX_Z1OvrFq.webp)
The average free iOS app collects 10.35 individual data points about its users, according to 42matters' live analysis of App Store privacy labels spanning more than 2.3 million apps, current as of July 2026. Paid apps collect roughly half as much, at 5.83 data points on average, though both figures likely understate reality: only 57.7% of free apps and 12.62% of paid apps disclose collecting any data whatsoever. Android tells a similar story through Google Play's own data-safety labels, where the average workplace app collects 19 data points and Gmail alone accounts for 26.
How many data points does the average app actually collect?
10.35 data points is the current average for a free iOS app, and 5.83 for a paid one, per 42matters' live dashboard tracking App Store privacy labels across more than 2.3 million apps. Apple's own privacy label framework groups collected information into 14 broad categories covering up to 32 individual data types, from contact info and location to browsing history and financial details, so an average free app is disclosing roughly a third of everything the label system allows it to collect.
That average masks a wide spread. Some apps decline to collect anything a developer must disclose, while others, especially social, workplace, and ad-supported apps, sit well above the mean. The number itself also moves daily: 42matters' dashboard is a live, continuously recalculated snapshot rather than a fixed annual report, so 10.35 is the figure as of this writing and will drift slightly by the time a new cohort of apps updates its labels.
Figure 1: Free iOS apps sit in the middle of the pack once Android workplace and foreign-owned apps are added for comparison. Source: 42matters (July 2026), Incogni (Mar 2026, Aug 2025).
The gap between platforms is partly a measurement artifact: Apple's and Google's label systems count data types slightly differently, and the Android figures come from small, hand-picked samples rather than a full-store average. Even accounting for that, the direction is consistent across every source checked for this article: apps collect more than a single data point, and the specific number is public information sitting in a label most users never open.
Do free apps collect more data than paid apps?
Free iOS apps are almost five times more likely to declare collecting personal data than paid apps: 57.7% of free apps do, compared with 12.62% of paid apps, per 42matters' July 2026 dashboard. That gap lines up with the business model. A free app usually needs an alternate revenue source, most often advertising or data-driven personalization, while a paid app has already been compensated at the point of purchase.
Figure 2: More than half of free iOS apps disclose some form of data collection. Source: 42matters, checked July 2026.
The average data points collected follow the same pattern: 10.35 for free apps versus 5.83 for paid apps, a gap of 4.52 data points. Neither number is exhaustive. A privacy label reflects what a developer chose to declare, not an independent audit, and 42matters' own figures show more than four in ten free apps reporting no data collection at all, a claim that is difficult to verify from the label alone. Free apps collect more data on average, but "free" and "paid" are still self-reported categories layered on top of a self-reported label.
How does a data point end up on a privacy label?
Apple and Google both require developers to self-classify every data type an app collects into one of a small number of buckets before the app can ship, and the classification a developer picks determines what a user sees before installing.
Figure 3: The classification test behind every entry on an App Store privacy label. Source: Apple App Store privacy details documentation, as characterized in Balash et al., arXiv preprint (last revised April 2025).
A team of academic researchers who tracked nearly weekly snapshots of over 1.6 million apps for more than a year, from July 2021 to October 2022, found that label adoption climbed from 42.1% to 70.1% of live apps over that period, and that 41.8% of apps carrying a label claimed to collect no data at all. The researchers, writing in a preprint last revised in April 2025 and not yet a peer-reviewed publication, flagged that many of those "does not collect" labels are likely a default choice rather than a verified fact, since developers are forced to pick some label before publishing and the path of least resistance is the empty one.
This is exactly the gap a business should not want to be on the wrong side of: a mismatch between what a privacy label says and what a website or app actually does is one of the fastest ways to draw a platform review or a regulator's attention. A privacy policy generator that itemizes each data type collected, matches it to a stated purpose, and updates when a new feature starts touching new data keeps that disclosure honest before an app store reviewer or a user's complaint forces the question. The classification test itself is simple; getting every data type correctly through it, consistently, is where most apps fall short.
How many apps actually track you across other companies' apps and sites?
17.36% of all iOS apps disclose using at least one data type specifically to track a user across other companies' apps and websites, according to 42matters' July 2026 dashboard. That is a narrower behavior than general data collection: an app can collect plenty of data for its own use, as most of the 57.7% of free apps do, without ever sharing an identifier that lets a third party connect that data back to the same user elsewhere.
Apple's App Tracking Transparency framework, which requires a separate on-device prompt before an app can track a user this way, was built around exactly this distinction. A related pattern shows up in our broader look at mobile app privacy statistics, where app permission requests and tracking consent rates tell a similar story: users say no to tracking far more often than they say no to installing the app in the first place.
Even among apps that declare tracking, the number of data types used for it is typically small, often a single identifier such as an advertising ID, rather than the full set of data the app collects for its own features. The takeaway is that "collects data" and "tracks you across apps" are different claims on the same label, and only the second one requires the extra consent step on iOS.
Which individual apps collect the most personal data?
Among the apps studied so far, Gmail tops the list at 26 declared data types, according to Incogni's March 2026 analysis of 10 popular Android workplace apps using Google Play's data-safety disclosures. Microsoft Teams follows closely at 25, and Zoom Workplace and Microsoft Outlook both sit in the low twenties. Outside the workplace category, TikTok leads a separate Incogni study of the 10 most-downloaded foreign-owned apps in the US, collecting 24 distinct data types as of that August 2025 analysis.
Figure 4: Communication and workplace apps collect roughly as much declared data as the most-scrutinized social apps. Source: Incogni (Mar 2026, Aug 2025).
Both Incogni studies are small by design, 10 apps each, chosen for being widely installed rather than randomly sampled, and both rely on developers' self-reported Google Play data-safety labels rather than independent code audits. That limits how far the specific rankings generalize, but the pattern holds across both samples: communication tools that need to read messages, calendars, and contacts to function land near the top of the list, right alongside the social apps that usually draw more privacy scrutiny.
How has app privacy labeling changed since Apple and Google mandated it?
Figure 5: Six years of privacy-label rollout, from Apple's first mandate to the current 42matters snapshot. Source: Apple, Google, Balash et al. (arXiv, rev. Apr 2025), Incogni (2025, 2026).
Apple began requiring privacy nutrition labels on new App Store submissions in December 2020, and Google followed with its own Data Safety section for Google Play in mid-2022. Adoption on the Apple side climbed from 42.1% of live apps in July 2021 to 70.1% by October 2022, per the same academic tracking study cited above, an increase driven mostly by new app submissions rather than older apps retroactively adding a label. Four years later, both label systems are standard, but neither platform independently verifies what a developer enters.
The practical effect is that a data point collected in 2026 is far more likely to show up on a public label than the same data point collected in 2020, simply because more of the app catalog is now covered. Whether the number on that label matches what the app's code actually does is a separate question this data cannot answer.
Do the apps that collect the most data also share the most?
Figure 6: Collecting the most data and sharing the most data are not the same behavior. Source: Incogni, "10 Popular Apps That Collect Extensive Personal Data" (Aug 2025).
Not consistently. Among the four foreign-owned apps Incogni tracked with both figures, Shein collects the least, at 17 data types, but shares 12 of them with third parties, the highest sharing count of the group. TikTok sits at the opposite corner: it collects the most, at 24 data types, but shares only 6, the same count as Alibaba's 20-and-6 split. Temu collects a moderate 18 data types and shares just 1.
That spread matters because "collects a lot" and "shares a lot" describe different privacy risks. Heavy collection with light sharing concentrates risk inside one company's systems; heavy sharing multiplies the number of parties that could mishandle the same data. A privacy label that only reports a collection count without a sharing breakdown, which is how most casual coverage of these numbers gets summarized, misses half of the picture.
Comparing the numbers
| App Type | Avg. Data Points Collected | Apps That Disclose Any Collection | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Workplace apps (Android) | 19 | n/a | Incogni (Mar 2026) |
| Foreign-owned apps (Android) | 15 | n/a | Incogni (Aug 2025) |
| Free apps (iOS) | 10.35 | 57.7% | 42matters (Jul 2026) |
| Paid apps (iOS) | 5.83 | 12.62% | 42matters (Jul 2026) |
| App | Data Points Collected | App Category | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail | 26 | Workplace (Android) | Incogni (Mar 2026) |
| Microsoft Teams | 25 | Workplace (Android) | Incogni (Mar 2026) |
| TikTok | 24 | Social, foreign-owned (Android) | Incogni (Aug 2025) |
| Zoom Workplace | 23 | Workplace (Android) | Incogni (Mar 2026) |
For more on how these figures sit alongside app permission requests and consent rates, see how many permissions the average app requests and how many apps share data with third parties.
The Bottom Line
10.35 data points is not a large number in isolation, but it sits on top of a self-reported system with real gaps: only 57.7% of free apps and 12.62% of paid apps even admit to collecting anything, an academic study found 41.8% of labeled apps claiming zero collection, and the apps that collect the most, like Gmail at 26 data types, do not always share the most. For a business publishing its own app or site, the practical implication is straightforward: the label a user reads before granting access should match what the code actually does, item for item, not the minimum a developer could plausibly get away with declaring. That gap between declared and actual behavior is what draws platform reviews and regulator complaints, and it is fully within a developer's control to close before anyone else notices it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many data points does the average app collect? The average free iOS app collects 10.35 data points, while the average paid iOS app collects 5.83, according to 42matters' live analysis of Apple App Store privacy labels covering more than 2.3 million apps, current as of July 2026.
Do free apps collect more data than paid apps? Yes. Free iOS apps collect 10.35 data points on average versus 5.83 for paid apps, and 57.7% of free apps declare collecting some personal data compared with only 12.62% of paid apps, per 42matters (July 2026).
Which app collects the most personal data? Among the apps studied so far, Gmail collects the most at 26 declared data types, per Incogni's March 2026 analysis of 10 popular Android workplace apps, ahead of Microsoft Teams at 25 and TikTok at 24.
How many apps actually track you across other companies' apps and sites? 17.36% of all iOS apps disclose using at least one data type specifically to track users across other companies' apps and websites, according to 42matters' live App Store privacy-label dashboard (July 2026).
Where the Numbers Come From
- 42matters. Live dashboard, checked July 2026. "Daily Apple Privacy Stats and App Tracking Transparency." Free iOS apps average 10.35 data points collected (57.7% declare any collection); paid apps average 5.83 (12.62% declare); 17.36% of all iOS apps declare tracking, across more than 2.3 million apps.
- Incogni. (2026). "Workplace Apps on Personal Devices Research." 10 popular Android workplace apps analyzed via Google Play data-safety labels, collected March 20, 2026. Average 19 data points collected per app; Gmail highest at 26.
- Incogni. (2025). "10 Popular Apps That Collect Extensive Personal Data." 10 most-downloaded foreign-owned apps in the US analyzed via Google Play data-safety labels, August 2025. Average 15 data types collected; TikTok highest at 24, sharing 6 with third parties.
- Balash, D. G., Ali, M. M., Kodwani, M., Wu, X., Kanich, C., and Aviv, A. J. "Longitudinal Analysis of Privacy Labels in the Apple App Store." arXiv preprint 2206.02658, last revised April 2025. Nearly weekly snapshots of over 1.6 million apps, July 15, 2021 to October 25, 2022; label adoption rose from 42.1% to 70.1%; 41.8% of labeled apps claimed no data collection.
- Apple. "App Privacy Details on the App Store." Official documentation of the 14-category, 32-data-type privacy label framework referenced throughout this article.
Note: All figures verified as of July 2026. The 42matters figures come from a live, continuously updated dashboard and will drift slightly from the exact values quoted here by the time a new cohort of apps updates its labels. Incogni's app-level rankings reflect a hand-picked sample of 10 apps per study rather than a full app-store average. Figures are refreshed at least twice a year to track new dashboard snapshots and study updates.
