CPT (cost per tap)
Cost per tap is what one tap on your Apple Ads ad costs on average. It is the price of App Store traffic, before you know whether that traffic installs, subscribes or pays back.
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Apple Ads search results campaigns are sold on a cost-per-tap basis: you are charged when a user taps your ad, not when it is shown or when the app is downloaded. CPT is therefore the most direct measure of what you are paying the auction, and the first number to look at when spend rises faster than results.
How CPT is calculated
Adapty Ads Manager reports average CPT for any campaign, ad group or keyword as spend divided by taps over the reporting period.
The figure is an average, and it is usually below the maximum CPT bid you set. Apple is often described as running a second-price auction, but observed CPTs do not follow that formula: an app with a lower bid can take most of the volume, and the price of a tap moves above what the next-highest bid would predict. Treat CPT as something you measure, not something you can calculate from competitors’ bids.
What drives CPT up or down
- Competition on the keyword. Generic, high-intent terms attract more bidders and cost more per tap than your own brand terms.
- Relevance. Apple weighs how well your app matches the query and how often users tap your ad. A relevant app can win at a lower bid than a poorly matched one.
- Country. The same keyword costs very different amounts in different storefronts.
- Your maximum bid, less than most people expect. A higher max CPT can win more auctions, but there is no straight line from a higher bid to more or better traffic.
CPT benchmarks
Adapty’s Apple Ads for subscription apps 2026 report measured CPT across 8,000+ apps and 1,000,000+ ad groups in 2025 campaigns. Country and category figures are separate aggregates; the report does not publish a category-by-country matrix.
| Scope | Average CPT |
|---|---|
| United States, all categories | $1.576 |
| Education apps, all countries | $1.38 |
| Medical apps, all countries | $1.21 |
| Graphics & Design apps, all countries | $1.17 |
| Utilities apps, all countries | $0.51 |
| Sports apps, all countries | $0.31 |
Source: Adapty, Apple Ads for subscription apps 2026. Use a benchmark to spot an outlier, not as a target: a high CPT on a keyword that converts to paying subscribers can be the most profitable line in the account.
CPT, CPA and what to optimize for
CPT tells you the price of a tap. CPA, cost per acquisition, adds the download rate: a $2 tap that converts to a download half the time costs $4 per download. For a subscription app, neither is the goal. Judge keywords on cost per trial, cost per subscription and ROAS, which show whether the traffic you pay for actually pays back.