Facebook Ads Cost Per App Install Benchmarks in India

Introduction

India’s cost-per-app-install (CPI) profile in this window is dramatically lower than the global baseline and punctuated by one extreme spike. This analysis is based on $3B worth of advertising data from our dataset, which provides strong directional benchmarks. This analysis explores ad performance trends for All industries available in India compared to the global benchmark.

The story in the data

Across the ten months available, India’s median CPI averaged about $1.18 per install, starting at $0.71 in July 2025 and finishing at $0.42 in June 2026 — a net decline of roughly 41% from the opening month. The series’ low point was $0.32 in September 2025; the high point was a pronounced outlier of $6.48 in October 2025. That October spike accounts for much of the dataset’s dollar volatility: including October, average month-to-month absolute change was roughly $1.55; excluding October, average absolute monthly change falls to approximately $0.30.

Month-to-month momentum reads like a sequence of sharp lifts and drops: July to August rose ~63%, August to September fell ~72%, September to October exploded by close to 1,900%, and October to November collapsed by about 89%. Outside that dramatic October event, India’s CPI movements were comparatively modest and clustered under $0.60 for most months.

Seasonal and monthly dynamics

There’s a clear short-term rhythm: a soft trough in September (the dataset low), an abrupt spike in October, and a rapid rebound to sub-dollar CPIs by November and December. The early-year months (January–March 2026) show steady, lower-dollar medians around $0.50–$0.60, with June 2026 remaining subdued at $0.42. In dollar terms, the dataset suggests idiosyncratic monthly shocks rather than a smooth seasonal ramp; the October event is the dominant anomaly in this cadence.

These dynamics sit alongside familiar seasonal descriptions used in media planning discourse — Q4 pressure and early-Q1 moderation — but in this India series the Q4 signal is dominated by a single, outsized October move rather than a drawn-out quarter-long rise.

Country vs. Global

Compared to the global baseline for the same months, the gap is substantial. The baseline median across the matching months is about $15.31 per install; India’s average of ~$1.18 represents roughly a 92% lower dollar level. On a month-by-month basis India ranged from roughly 2% to 40% of global CPI: at its narrowest in October India was about 40% of the global median, and at its widest in February and September India was roughly 1.7–2% of global CPI. Global volatility is larger in absolute dollars (driven by multi-month spikes such as February 2026 and a later July 2026 baseline peak), while India’s absolute dollar swings are small except for the October outlier — making the India series relatively low-cost but punctuated by sharp relative movements.

Understanding cost-per-app-install benchmarks, alongside Facebook Ads benchmarks, CPC trends, CPM analysis and CTR performance, paints a country-specific ad costs picture. This industry ad performance snapshot for All industries in India offers a clear contrast to global patterns and highlights where country-level CPI deviates from broader benchmarks.