What to expect in your first 30 days after launch

Think of the launch as the starting pistol, the first 30 days are the sprint that determines whether your app stands a chance of becoming a sustained performer.

Here are a few statistics to set the scene:

• The average app retention rate at Day 30 across all categories is still very low, around 5 % or less in many cases.
• In the UK, 58% of smartphone users say they would abandon a brand entirely after encountering problems with its mobile application.
• One study found that most mobile apps lose about 77% of their daily active users in just the first 3 days after installation.

What this tells us: the margin between “just launched” and “established, engaged user-base” is huge and you can’t afford to leave things to chance. Working with app developers means you should expect a partner who understands what these numbers mean and is ready to act accordingly, not just celebrate the launch and move on.

In the first week after launch, your focus shifts from “everything is good now” to “what’s actually happening?” Your team should already have a monitoring framework in place.

Here are the core things you should track from day one:

• First open / onboarding: How many people opened the app after install, and how many completed onboarding (if there is one)?
• Crash rate & stability: Are there technical problems? Even if your team built it solidly, things like device fragmentation, OS updates or network conditions can reveal issues quietly.
• Session length and frequency: How long are users staying? Are they coming back within a few hours or days?
• Core-feature activation: Are users engaging with the primary feature you expect them to use? If you’re a travel app, you might expect “search flight” or “view itinerary”; if you’re a retail app, you might expect “browse product” or “first purchase”.
• Feedback and sentiment: What are your users saying via app store reviews, customer-service tickets, or built-in feedback tools?

The first week often sets the tone for the rest of the month. If users stumble in onboarding, or if crashes or bugs dominate their experience, you’re already behind before week two. According to research, users drop off fast if they don’t see value quickly.

Working with skilled UK-based app developers means you should have these monitoring tools and dashboards ready and being looked at before you hit “go”. If they tell you “we’ll check in after a month”, that’s a red flag.

• A daily report (or at least every other day) in week one on crash rate, onboarding completion, first-session duration, and core feature usage.
• A feedback funnel: simple survey or in-app prompt asking new users: “What could we improve?”
• A hotfix plan: If a major issue (e.g., crash on iPhone 14 or Android version) is identified, you want your development team ready for swift patching.

After you’ve stabilised the app and collected initial user behaviour, week two through four is where your focus should shift to engagement and iteration.

• Are users returning within 7 days? The retention curve typically steepens here. According to benchmarks, day-7 retention may sit in the low tens of percentage points.
• Which features are being used most? Which features are ignored or confusing?
• What user feedback is emerging? Are there common complaints, suggestions or positives?
• How is the app performing technically over time? Is there memory drift, slower load times, battery drain?
• Are your user acquisition channels delivering the right quality users (i.e., those who stick around)?

• Onboarding tweak: If you see many users install but few complete the onboarding, it may need simplification. Maybe a step can be skipped or a tutorial added.
• Push / in-app messaging: Gentle prompts can help re-engage users who opened once then didn’t return. But be careful, poorly timed or irrelevant messages can annoy users and drive uninstalls.
• Feature prominentness: If your data shows the core feature has low adoption, maybe it isn’t visible enough in the UI, or the value proposition isn’t clear. Your app programmers & designers should review this.
• App store optimisation & review management: Encourage happy users to leave reviews (which helps with visibility) and respond to negative reviews thoughtfully (showing you care).
• Segment your users: Create cohorts of early adopters vs later users, or by channel, so you can see if behaviour differs across groups.

• A UK study found that 58% of consumers would completely abandon a brand after experiencing problems with its app. That means technical reliability and UX are not just “nice to have”, they’re fundamental.
• The broader average retention at Day 30 remains extremely challenging, with single-digit percentages in many categories globally. It means your early engagement efforts really matter.

By the end of the first month, here’s what a confident app team (like us!) should be ready to report to you, the business leader:

• How many users downloaded the app, how many opened it, how many completed onboarding and used your core feature?
• What is the retention rate (e.g., % of users still active after 30 days)? If it’s far below industry benchmarks, what are the hypotheses?
• What are the primary drop-off points in your user flow? Where are people quitting?
• What technical issues have been identified and resolved, and what remains?
• What feedback have users given and what are the planned improvements?
• What early wins have been achieved, e.g., reduced crash rate, improved first-session duration, higher core-feature adoption?
• What is the plan for the next 30, 60, 90 days: new features, optimisation, marketing push, scaling?

• “We’ll look at retention next quarter.” No, you must be looking now.
• “No one complained, so everything’s fine.” Silence does not mean success; lack of feedback often means users simply walk away.
• “All analytics set up, no anomalies.” Great. But are you acting on them? Data without action is a wasted investment.

When you engage professionals who specialise in app development in the UK (not just coding but full lifecycle thinking), you gain a partner who understands:

• That launch isn’t the finish line. The relationship continues into monitoring, optimisation and growth.
• That the right analytics, crash monitoring and user-engagement tools must be built or configured from Day 0.
• That user experience and stability affect brand perception, especially in markets where users compare multiple apps and are ready to abandon quickly.
• That UK regulation and user expectations (privacy, accessibility, performance) are equally important.
• That early wins help build momentum, user-confidence and word-of-mouth, which in turn support marketing ROI and retention.

If your chosen application developers can talk you through these first 30-day milestones and have a clear plan for “what comes next”, you’re more likely to be working with the right partner.

In many ways, the first 30 days after launch are not glamorous. They’re not about big features or global expansion. They’re about getting the basics right, listening to your users, and building a sustainable platform.

If you approach this period with the mindset of “we’ve launched but now we learn and improve”, rather than “we launched so we relax”, you’ll be positioning your app for long-term growth. That means:

• Having your app development team ready to monitor, fix, iterate.
• Keeping your business team aligned with metrics and user feedback, not just installs and downloads.
• Making decisions and improvements quickly, the longer you ignore minor issues, the bigger they grow.
• Planning ahead - retention after 30 days, scaling beyond, monetisation if relevant.

By the end of the month, you should feel confident: you’ve stabilised your app, you’ve got real data, you’ve made early improvements, and you have a clear plan for the next phase. That sense of momentum matters.

Your app isn’t “just launched” anymore. It’s live, it’s being used, people have opinions, and the next steps are about turning usage into value. If you treat those first 30 days right, you’ll build a stronger foundation for what comes next.

Work with the app experts who know what it takes to launch, grow, and perfect a product that truly performs.