Messenger vs Instagram
Messenger
Meta Platforms, Inc.
App Store
$824.2K/mo
~$9.89M/yr · 1.2B installs
VS
Instagram
Google Play
$37.96M/mo
~$455.52M/yr · 7.6B installs
Revenue winner
Instagram wins
+4506% vs other
Installs winner
Instagram wins
+554% vs other
MAU winner
Instagram wins
+643% vs other
Rating winner
Messenger wins
+16% vs other
Why Instagram is winning
Top 3 reasons - backed by the public App Store / Play Store numbers.
- Instagram earns roughly 46× more per month than Messenger - $37.96M vs $824.2K.
- Premium pricing. Instagram charges $1.38/mo vs Messenger's $0.99/mo - higher ARPU per converted user.
- Bigger install base. Instagram has ~7.6B lifetime installs vs Messenger's ~1.2B - 6.5× the funnel top.
→ Find more apps with this revenue gap · Full Instagram report
Side-by-side metrics
Bars scale to whichever app is bigger on that row. Green = winner.
Messenger
vs
Instagram
Monthly revenue (est.)?
$824.2K
▶
$37.96M
Annual revenue (est.)
$9.89M
▶
$455.52M
Lifetime installs (est.)
1.2B
▶
7.6B
Monthly active users (est.)?
25.5M
▶
189.0M
App Store rating
4.66★
◀
4.00★
Total ratings
12.9M
▶
168.3M
US grossing rank
-
=
-
Cheapest monthly sub
$0.99
▶
$1.38
IAP tiers detected
1 tiers
◀
0 tiers
- Category
- Social Networking
- Price
- Free
- Released
- Aug 9, 2011
- Last updated
- Jun 24, 2026
- File size
- 234.6 MB
- Content rating
- 12+
- Version
- 567.0.0
- Languages
- Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish +23 more
- Category
- Social
- Price
- Free
- Released
- Apr 3, 2012
- Last updated
- Jun 23, 2026
- File size
- -
- Content rating
- Teen
- Version
- VARY
- Languages
- -
Messenger trajectory
Instagram trajectory
FAQ
Which makes more money, Messenger or Instagram? v
Instagram earns about $37.96M per month, while Messenger earns about $824.2K. That is a 46.1× revenue gap (~$37.14M more per month for Instagram). Annual revenue: Messenger ≈ $9.89M/year, Instagram ≈ $455.52M/year. Estimates are derived from public App Store / Google Play signals - grossing rank, scraped IAP tiers, ratings and category benchmarks.
Which has more downloads, Messenger or Instagram? v
Instagram leads with about 7.6B estimated downloads vs 1.2B for Messenger - a 6.5× gap. Messenger's App Store downloads are estimated from 12.9M ratings × the standard 1:75 ratio. Instagram reports 5,000,000,000+ installs on Google Play.
Are Messenger and Instagram in the same App Store category on each store and competing for the same money? v
No - Messenger is in Social Networking and Instagram is in Social. They share screen-time attention but earn money in different niches: Messenger from social networking monetization patterns, Instagram from social.
What in-app purchases and subscription pricing do Messenger and Instagram offer? v
Messenger: IAP range 1 tiers detected. Instagram: IAP range $0.19 - $10,000.00 per item. Messenger runs a "Subscription (~$0.99/mo)" monetization model; Instagram runs "Subscription (~$1.38/mo)". Scraped tier prices and detected subscription pricing drive the bulk of the per-app revenue estimate above.
Which has better ratings, Messenger or Instagram? v
Messenger edges ahead with ★ 4.7 vs ★ 4.0 (gap of 0.7 stars). Rating volume: Messenger 12.9M ratings, Instagram 4.6M ratings. Higher rating volume = stronger ASO signal even when star averages are close.
How accurate are these Messenger vs Instagram revenue estimates? v
Directional - typically within 2-3× of actual money earned for popular apps. The $824.2K for Messenger and $37.96M for Instagram are derived from App Store grossing rank / Google Play install ranges, scraped IAP tiers, ratings volume and category benchmarks (Social Networking / Social) - net of the 15-30% Apple/Google store cut. Real revenue depends on country mix, retention, refunds and ad fill rate, none of which Apple or Google publish.
How do I compare Messenger or Instagram to a different App Store app? v
Use the search box at the bottom of this page or paste any two App Store or Google Play links into the homepage tool. We auto-generate a permanent comparison URL with revenue, downloads, IAP tiers, subscription pricing and grossing rank for both apps.