Startup MRR benchmarks by category
Median monthly recurring revenue by category across 423 founder-backed startups in 14 categories tracked by IdeaWave, as of Sep 1, 2026. Every underlying figure is either payment-verified through a connected provider or self-reported by the founder, never modeled; the overall median is $17.3K per month. Quartiles show the spread inside each category.
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Benchmarks table
| Category | Startups | 25th pct | Median MRR | 75th pct | Top |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | 34 | $16.9K | $28.1K | $296.2K | $8.3M |
| Content & Creator | 54 | $5K | $24.7K | $88.9K | $3.6M |
| Sales & Outreach | 42 | $7K | $23.4K | $99K | $8.3M |
| Analytics & Data | 24 | $15.6K | $22.9K | $40.9K | $416.7K |
| Marketing & SEO | 97 | $8K | $20.9K | $66.7K | $2.3M |
| Community & Social | 24 | $5.2K | $19.7K | $30.2K | $250K |
| AI Image & Video | 36 | $5K | $19.2K | $79.3K | $833.3K |
| AI Assistants & Agents | 67 | $10.7K | $18.2K | $29.9K | $16.7M |
| Education & Courses | 26 | $8.5K | $15.6K | $31K | $234.3K |
| Developer Tools | 55 | $4.7K | $14.1K | $44.1K | $10M |
| Health & Fitness | 22 | $9.5K | $12.9K | $29.6K | $400K |
| Fintech | 16 | $634 | $12.2K | $24.1K | $803K |
| Design & Photo | 15 | $4.1K | $10K | $24.1K | $12.5M |
| Productivity | 43 | $1.2K | $6.2K | $22.3K | $833.3K |
How to read this
Each row aggregates the current monthly recurring revenue of every founder-backed startup in that category that IdeaWave has checked within the last two weeks. Payment-verified figures come from a provider the founder connected through TrustMRR; self-reported figures come from public founder directories and are labeled as such on each startup's page. Modeled App Store estimates are excluded here. Categories with fewer than three startups are omitted; categories with five or more link to their own ranked page. For frozen monthly snapshots, see the Revenue Index.