Paid extensions
+32%
Paid extensions are outgrowing the store. Indexed paid-tier extensions grew 32% YoY while total Chrome Web Store installs grew only 7% — a clear shift to monetization-first builds.
●Annual report · 2026 edition
State of
Chrome Extensions
A first-of-its-kind look at how paid browser extensions grow, price, and retain customers — built from anonymized data across thousands of extensions monetizing with crxpay.
9,200+ extensions$418M+ tracked ARR62 countriesQ1 2025 → Q1 2026
trial → paid
+38%
ARPU
2.1×
involuntary churn
−54%
2026 median MRR
$4,830
Key findings
Paid Chrome extensions are finally growing up.
Five years after Google killed Chrome Web Store payments, a new subscription economy is running on top of it. Here’s what the numbers say.
ARPU by category
Productivity
$11.40
AI & writing
$9.40
Developer
$7.60
Media
$4.20
Productivity leads on ARPU, media leads on volume. Productivity extensions average $11.40/mo ARPU. Media & content extensions charge less but convert 2.4× more trials.
90-day churn
Monthly onlyMonthly + annual
Annual plans cut churn almost in half. Extensions offering a yearly plan alongside monthly see 46% lower 90-day churn and 2.1× higher LTV.
Trial vs. refund offer
14.2%
7-day trial5.1%
Refund onlyTrials beat money-back guarantees, decisively. A 7-day free trial converts 2.8× better than a 'first month refund' paywall — across every category we measured.
Active experiments / team
Top quartile: 4+/mo3.2× faster growth
Paywalls matter more than pricing. Teams that run at least one paywall experiment per month grow revenue 3.2× faster than teams that ship a single paywall and leave it.
Failed-charge recovery
✓Retry #3 · succeeded
+$14.99 recovered · Visa …4242
Net recovery22%
Dunning recovers more than you think. Extensions with automatic card-retry dunning recover 22% of failed charges — the difference between a healthy net and a leaky one.
0+
Extensions analyzed
$0M+
Tracked ARR
0
Countries
$0.20
Median ARPU / month
Chapter 01 · Category
Not every category monetizes the same way.
Productivity dominates share of revenue. Media wins on volume. Developer tools quietly retain customers better than anyone else.
Category mix · ARPU · trial conversion · churn
Productivity
$11.4014.2%4.6%
AI & writing
$9.4018.8%5.2%
Developer tools
$7.609.8%3.1%
Media & content
$4.2022.4%8.3%
Shopping
$5.1012.6%6.7%
Security
$8.9011.3%2.4%
Other
$5.8010.1%5.5%
Share of paid extensions
Productivity26%
AI & writing18%
Developer tools14%
Media & content17%
Shopping11%
Security8%
Other6%
Chapter 02 · Conversion
The real trial-to-paid funnel.
A top-quartile paid extension converts 22% of paywall views into a trial, and keeps 64% of those trials once billing kicks in.
Top-quartile funnel · median of 9,200 extensions
Paywall view100,000 sessions
100%
Package selected38,000
38%
Trial started22,000
22%
Billing confirmed14,080
14%
Active after 90 days9,064
9%
The 9% rule: 9 out of every 100 paywall views turn into a customer still paying after 90 days. Everything in this report is about moving that number up.
Benchmarks · your extension vs. peers
P25MedianP75
View → trial
5.2%12.4%22.0%
Trial → paid
28.0%48.6%64.0%
30-day retention
58.0%74.2%88.5%
Annual plan uptake
6.0%18.4%41.0%
Green = top-quartile benchmark. If your numbers land left of the median, the paywall is leaking more customers than peers.
Chapter 03 · Retention
The first 90 days decide everything.
Most churn is front-loaded. Extensions that survive the first 90 days retain 72% of customers for a full year.
Cohort retention · month 0 → month 12
Monthly only
Monthly + annual
With dunning + win-back
Why they leave
38% of churn is involuntary.
Card expiry, insufficient funds, and silent failures — all recoverable with dunning.
Involuntary (card expired / failed)38%
Perceived value drop-off24%
Found a free alternative16%
Uninstalled the extension12%
Other / unknown10%
Chapter 04 · Pricing
The average paid extension now costs $6.70/mo.
Monthly still dominates by volume, but annual plans generate 58% of all tracked ARR. Lifetime has quietly disappeared.
Monthly price distribution
6%< $2
24%$2–5
38%$5–9
20%$9–15
8%$15–25
4%> $25
Median: $6.70 · Mode: $7.99
Billing cadence offered
Monthly72% of extensions
Annual41% of extensions
Quarterly6% of extensions
Lifetime2% of extensions
Share of tracked ARR
Annual: 58%Monthly: 40%Other: 2%
Trial length configured
No trial26%
3-day8%
7-day48%
14-day14%
30-day4%
The 7-day sweet spot: extensions with a 7-day trial convert 2.8× better than no-trial paywalls, with no measurable increase in refund rates.
Chapter 05 · Geography
Where paid Chrome extensions actually make money.
The US drives a third of tracked revenue. Northern Europe punches far above its population weight. India & Brazil are the fastest-growing regions by paid-user count.
Revenue density · 62 countries
The US + UK + DE = 51% of tracked ARR.
Top 10 countries by tracked ARR
🇺🇸$12.60
United States34.8%
🇬🇧$10.40
United Kingdom9.2%
🇩🇪$9.20
Germany7.4%
🇨🇦$10.80
Canada5.6%
🇦🇺$11.20
Australia4.3%
🇫🇷$8.80
France4.0%
🇮🇳$3.40
India3.8%
🇧🇷$4.60
Brazil3.1%
🇯🇵$9.60
Japan2.9%
🇳🇱$10.60
Netherlands2.2%
ARPU column = monthly ARPU in that country, not LTV.
Methodology
How we put this together.
- The sample. 9,200+ Chrome extensions using crxpay for subscription billing between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, across 62 countries. No individual extension is identifiable.
- What counts as ‘paid’. Extensions with at least one successful paid subscription in the measurement window. Free trials count toward funnel metrics but not ARR.
- Aggregation. Medians are reported when distributions are skewed (ARPU, revenue). Means are used only for trial-conversion rates. Cohorts are calendar-month cohorts.
- Categories. Categorization is based on the extension’s Chrome Web Store listing, not self-reported — to match how real users actually discover these extensions.
- Privacy. All data is anonymized and aggregated before analysis. No customer PII, no extension-level identifiers, and no raw events leave the crxpay boundary.
Questions about the dataset? Email research@crxpay.io — we’ll answer anything we can without breaking the anonymization.
Get the full report
72 pages. Every chart, broken down by category and geography.
Benchmarks, deep dives, and the full dataset behind every stat in this page. Free — no gated form, no sales call.
Prefer a summary? Read the blog recap.
Annual report · 2026
State of Chrome Extensions
crxpay · 72 pages
Ch 01 · Category→
Ch 02 · Conversion→
Ch 03 · Retention→
Ch 04 · Pricing→
Ch 05 · Geography→