Canadian Small Business Apps in 2026: What 310 App Store and Google Play Listings Reveal

Small business apps in Canada are mostly kept up, but a stubborn minority have been left to rot. On November 1, 2026 we pulled the public store listings of 310 apps published by or for Canadian small and mid-sized businesses, from restaurants and gyms to credit unions and car washes, and measured how current, how well rated and how close to the store rules each one is. This page is the full study: what we measured, how we decided an app belonged to a Canadian small business, every number with its sample size, and what the results mean if you run an app or are thinking about one.

The short answer

We studied 310 App Store and Google Play listings from Canadian small and mid-sized businesses on November 1, 2026. Most were maintained: 76.7% had an update in the past year. But 11.3% had gone two or more years without one, 58.4% had fewer than 10 ratings, and restaurant apps were the most neglected category.

That paragraph is written to be quoted, and you are welcome to quote it with a link back to this page. The rest of this study explains where each number comes from. A few points matter more than the headline:

• The typical app is fresh. The median listing had been updated 108.5 days before we looked, about three and a half months.
• The neglected ones are very neglected. Twenty listings had not been updated in more than three years, and the oldest last update was close to ten years old.
• Ratings are thin. Outside credit unions, the median listing had 2 ratings. A star average built on two people tells a customer almost nothing.
• Updating did not buy stars. Among apps with at least 5 ratings, we found no link between how recently an app was updated and its rating.
• The next update is often bigger than owners expect. More than half of the Google Play apps and 41.2% of the App Store apps were last built before the current store rules took effect, so their next release has to clear new technical minimums first.

If you only want to know whether your own app is at risk, skip to what it means if you have an app. If you want the method first, it is in how we did it.

Key findings, with sample sizes

Every finding below gives the number of apps behind it, because a percentage without its base is easy to misread. Where a group is small, we say so.

The sample is 310 listings: 195 from Apple's App Store and 115 from Google Play, both read from the Canadian storefront. Some businesses appear on both stores, so the 310 listings represent roughly 278 distinct businesses. We count listings rather than businesses throughout, because each store listing is maintained, rated and judged on its own.

Who is in the sample

The sample covers eight kinds of local business that commonly have their own app: restaurants and cafes, gyms and studios, credit unions, local and home services, salons and barbers, real estate agents and brokerages, clinics and pharmacies, and retail and grocery. We found them by searching both stores for business terms paired with ten Canadian cities, then kept only apps that met a test for being Canadian and a test for being a small or mid-sized local business. The full method is in how we did it.

The funnel is steep on purpose. Search results in both stores are full of things that are not a local business's own app: food delivery marketplaces, city guides, games, transit trackers, government health apps, national chains and software sold to business owners. We removed all of those. Of 2,310 listings we downloaded in full, 424 passed the automatic tests and 310 survived a manual read of every one.

Two things stand out in that table. First, the stores surfaced different businesses. Apple's search returned many more small restaurants, studios and salons, while Google's returned credit unions far more readily. Second, trades are missing. We searched for plumbers, heating companies and contractors in every city, and almost everything we found was a marketplace connecting homeowners with many contractors, or software for contractors to run their business. Individual trades businesses with their own customer app were too rare in our results to report on, so we folded the one or two we found into local services. That absence is a finding in itself: in the trades, the app layer is owned by platforms, not by the businesses.

Credit unions deserve a note. They are member-owned financial institutions, and some in our sample are large. We kept them because they are local, independent and a real part of the small business app picture in Canada, but they behave differently from a cafe or a barber, so we often report results with and without them.

How recently apps were updated

Most apps in the sample were updated recently. Of the 292 listings that showed a last update date, 47.6% had been updated within three months and 76.7% within a year. The median was 108.5 days.

A single snapshot cannot show how often each app is updated, because neither store publishes a full version history in the data we used. What it shows is recency: the time since the last release. Recency is a good proxy for care. An app updated last month has someone paying attention to it. An app last touched three years ago probably does not.

The two stores look quite different on this measure.

On Google Play, 87.0% of the 115 listings had been updated within a year, only 2 had gone more than two years, and none had gone more than three. On the App Store, 70.1% of the 177 dated listings were updated within a year, 17.5% (31) had gone two years or more and 11.3% (20) more than three.

We do not think this means Android owners are more diligent. A likelier explanation is Google's own rule. Since August 31, 2026, Google Play has required existing apps to target Android 15 (API level 35) or higher to stay available to new users on devices running a newer Android version. An app that was last updated years ago cannot meet that rule, so it is hidden from many new users, and it is likely to rank poorly or not appear in searches like the ones we ran. The App Store has no equivalent rule that hides old apps from search, so its stale apps are still easy to find. In other words, part of the difference is about what each store lets you see. We explain the target rule in detail in the Google Play section below.

Credit union apps were the most consistently maintained group: 93.1% had an update in the past year and none had gone two years. That fits an industry with regulators, security obligations and members who use the app every week. Gyms and studios came next at 84.1%, helped by booking software vendors that push updates to every client app at once. Restaurants were at the other end, at 60.8%.

Abandoned apps: no update in two years or more

We call an app abandoned if its last update was more than two years before November 1, 2026. By that test, 33 of the 292 dated listings (11.3%) were abandoned, and 20 (6.8%) had gone more than three years.

Restaurants dominate this list. Of 79 restaurant listings with a date, 21 (26.6%) were abandoned, and restaurants make up 21 of the 33 abandoned apps overall. Clinics (2 of 12) and real estate (2 of 15) show high rates too, but with groups that small, one or two apps swing the percentage a long way, so treat those as signals rather than conclusions. Credit unions had no abandoned apps at all.

Why restaurants? We cannot see inside any business, but the pattern in the data points to a likely cause. Restaurant apps were by far the most likely to be built on a shared online ordering platform: 68.7% of them by our inference, covered in the template section. When a restaurant changes its ordering provider, closes a location or simply stops paying for the branded app, the old listing often stays in the store with nobody responsible for it. Half of all abandoned apps in the sample (16 of 33) appeared to be platform-built, against 30.6% of the sample overall.

Abandonment carries real risk on the App Store. Apple says developers whose apps "haven't been updated within the last three years and fail to meet a minimal download threshold" will be notified that the app may be removed, and asked to submit an update within 90 days. Apple does not publish the threshold. We cannot see downloads either, but 16 of the 20 App Store listings that had gone more than three years had fewer than 10 ratings, which suggests few people are installing them. Those apps fit the profile Apple describes.

The more common cost of an abandoned app is quieter. A customer finds it, installs it, sees an old menu or an ordering screen that no longer works, and decides the business is careless. An app that does not work is worse than no app, because it sits in the store under your name.

Google Play: how many apps meet the target API rules

Google Play sets a minimum "target API level" that every app must declare. The target tells Android which version's rules the app was built and tested for. According to Google's Play Console Help page on target API requirements, since August 31, 2026, "new apps and app updates must target Android 16 (API level 36) or higher to be submitted to Google Play", with an optional extension to November 1, 2026, the date of this study. Existing apps "must target Android 15 (API level 35) or higher to remain available to new users" on devices running a newer Android version. Google adds that users who installed the app before "will not be impacted".

The target level is not shown on a store listing, so we could not read it directly. What we can do is reason from the last update date, because an app's target only changes when a new version is published.

• Updated on or after August 31, 2026: 51 apps (44.3%). These were published under the API 36 rule, so they target API 36, unless the developer used the extension that ended today.
• Updated between August 31, 2025 and August 30, 2026: 56 apps (48.7%). The rule in force when they were published required API 35, so they meet the rule for staying visible to new users. They do not meet the current rule for updates.
• Updated between September 3, 2024 and August 30, 2025: 6 apps (5.2%). These could target API 34 or API 35. We cannot tell which.
• Updated before September 3, 2024: 2 apps (1.7%). Google released Android 15 to the Android Open Source Project on September 3, 2024. An app last published before that date was built before API 35 was final, so it almost certainly targets API 34 or lower and is hidden from new users on newer Android phones.

Put together: at least 107 of 115 Google Play apps (93.0%) meet the rule for staying visible to new users, which is a better result than we expected. But 64 of 115 (55.7%) were last published before the API 36 rule took effect, which means the next update for more than half of these apps must first move the app to API 36. That is rarely a one-line change. Targeting Android 16 switches on behaviour changes, including edge-to-edge layouts that can no longer be turned off and new back-navigation behaviour, and those need testing. We list them in our guide to app store deadlines for 2026 and 2027.

By business type, the 64 apps that still need the API 36 move were mostly credit unions (30), then restaurants (9), local services (8), gyms (7), salons (5), real estate (3) and retail (2). Credit unions are in that list because many of them had updated in the months just before the rule changed, not because they are neglected.

Two cautions. This method gives bounds, not exact levels, and our Google Play sample probably under-counts stale apps, because apps that fail the visibility rule are harder to find through search. The true share of out-of-date Android apps among Canadian small businesses is likely higher than our 1.7%.

App Store: build rules and the minimum iOS version

Apple sets its technical floor through the tools an app is built with. According to Apple's Upcoming Requirements page, since April 28, 2026, "apps uploaded to App Store Connect must be built with Xcode 26 or later" using the iOS 26 SDK, and since September 9, 2026, "iOS and iPadOS apps uploaded to App Store Connect must target iOS 13 or later". Neither rule removes an existing app from the store. Both apply the moment the owner wants to ship an update.

Of 177 App Store listings with a date, 73 (41.2%) were last updated before April 28, 2026, so they were built with an older Xcode and their next update has to move to Xcode 26 first. Of those, 25 (14.1% of the total) were last updated before April 29, 2024, the date Apple began requiring Xcode 15. Those apps are at least two required toolchain generations behind. In practice, a jump that size often means updating third-party libraries that have changed or been abandoned, and sometimes rewriting parts of the app that used them.

The minimum iOS version tells a similar story from another angle.

Thirty-four App Store listings (17.4%) still list a minimum below iOS 13. Because uploads must now target iOS 13 or later, every one of those apps must raise its floor in its next update. That is usually simple in itself, but it is a sign the app has not been rebuilt in a while. The most common minimum was iOS 15 (65 apps), and 61.5% of listings required iOS 15 or newer. Apps we inferred to be platform-built were more likely to have a floor below iOS 13 (26.3%) than other apps (13.8%).

On Google Play, the most common minimum was Android 10, and 54.4% of the 114 listings that showed a minimum required Android 10 or newer. Ten apps (8.8%) still supported Android 6 or older.

Ratings and review counts

Most small business apps have very few ratings. Across all 310 listings, 58.4% had fewer than 10. Leave out credit unions, whose members rate their banking app far more often, and the share rises to 71.4%, with a median of just 2 ratings per listing.

On the App Store, 24.1% of listings had no rating in the Canadian storefront and another 45.1% had between 1 and 9. On Google Play, 36.5% showed no public rating. Google does not display a count for apps with very few ratings, so its "no public rating" group includes apps with a handful of ratings, which is why the 1 to 9 band is almost empty there.

The averages differ sharply between stores. Among apps with at least 5 ratings, the median App Store rating was 4.8 (77 apps), while the median Google Play rating was 3.8 (73 apps). Part of that gap is the mix: Google Play's rated apps are mostly credit unions, and banking apps attract criticism every time a login changes or a feature moves. Credit unions had a median of 3.9 stars, and 29.8% of the 57 rated credit union apps sat below 3.5. Gyms and studios (median 4.9) and salons (median 5.0) were rated far higher, but usually by a few loyal customers.

Restaurants stand out again. A third of rated restaurant apps sat below 3.5 stars. Ordering apps are judged on every transaction, and a failed payment or a wrong order turns into a one-star review quickly. Real estate apps had the opposite problem: 58.8% had no rating at all, which suggests they are installed by few people.

Google Play also shows install bands. The median Google Play app in our sample had about 3,762 installs; 32.2% had fewer than 1,000 and 27.8% had 10,000 or more. Most small business apps serve a few hundred or a few thousand customers, which is normal and fine. It also explains the thin ratings.

For how the stores review and reject apps in the first place, see our app store review statistics for 2026.

Does updating an app improve its rating?

Not in this data. We compared each app's rating with the number of days since its last update, for the 148 listings with at least 5 ratings. The Spearman rank correlation was 0.04, which is effectively zero. Freshly updated apps were not rated higher, and stale apps were not rated lower.

This surprised us less than it might seem. A store rating is an average over the whole life of the app, and both stores weight it in their own ways, so a rating built up years ago moves slowly. Most stale apps also have so few ratings that they barely enter the comparison: only 11 apps idle for two years had 5 or more. And the most frequently updated group, credit unions, also has the lowest ratings, for reasons that have little to do with update frequency.

So what is the point of updating? Updates keep the app installable, keep it visible in Google Play, keep it inside Apple's rules and keep it working on new phones. Those are reasons to update that do not depend on stars. The honest reading of this finding is that you should not expect a rating jump from an update alone. Ratings move when the experience changes in a way customers notice, such as faster ordering, fewer crashes or a booking flow that no longer fails, and when you ask happy customers to rate at the right moment.

App size and device support

The median App Store listing in our sample was 59.2 MB, and the middle half sat between 37.1 MB and 105.6 MB. Fifteen apps were over 200 MB, and the largest was 654.2 MB.

Size matters for a small business app because customers usually install it at the counter, in a parking lot or in a gym lobby, often on mobile data. A large download is a reason to give up. Apps we inferred to be platform-built were a little smaller at the median (53.5 MB) than others (65.7 MB), which fits a shared, trimmed codebase. Google Play listings in our data did not report a size, so we cannot compare the stores on this measure.

On device support, the spread of minimum versions, covered in the App Store section, shows most owners have already dropped very old phones. That is sensible. Supporting an iPhone that cannot run iOS 15 or an Android phone older than Android 10 costs testing time for a shrinking number of customers.

Template and white-label apps

About three in ten apps in the sample appear to be built on a shared platform rather than built for that business alone. We counted 95 of 310 listings (30.6%) as platform-built. This is an inference, not a fact about any single app, and the way we made it matters.

We flagged an app as platform-built when its developer account was a known booking, ordering, loyalty or app-builder company publishing on behalf of the business, or when the same developer account published apps for three or more different businesses in our sample. Online ordering providers, class booking systems for studios, barber booking tools and car wash membership systems all publish branded apps this way. Many are good products. The point is not that platform apps are bad, but that they behave differently.

Restaurants were the most platform-heavy group by far, at 68.7% (57 of 83). Local services followed at 37.5%, driven by car wash membership apps, then gyms and studios at 24.2% and salons at 24.1%. Clinics and credit unions showed none. Credit unions very likely do use shared banking software underneath, but they publish under their own names, so our method cannot see it. The real platform share is therefore higher than 30.6%.

Platform apps split into two camps. Some were very fresh: 52.8% had been updated within three months, because when the vendor ships an update, every client app gets it. Others were abandoned: 18.0% of platform apps had gone two years or more without an update, against 11.7% of other apps outside credit unions. Platform apps were also less likely to have any rating (51.6% rated, against 73.2%) and had a lower median rating where rated (3.7 stars, against 4.9).

The practical lesson for an owner is about control. On a platform app, the vendor decides when the app is updated, what it looks like and whether it survives if you switch providers. That can be a good trade for a single cafe that wants online ordering next month. It is a weak position for a business whose app is central to how customers buy, book or pay, because the listing, the reviews and often the customer accounts belong to someone else's system.

If you are weighing a platform app against your own, our guide on whether it is worth building an app walks through that decision.

Breakdown by business type

This table puts the main measures side by side for each business type. Update shares use the listings that showed a date; rating figures use all listings in the group.

Restaurants and cafes (83 listings). The largest and most troubled group. Only 60.8% were updated in the past year, 26.6% were abandoned, a third of rated apps sat below 3.5 stars, and 68.7% appear platform-built. Restaurants have more apps than any other kind of small business we looked at, and more neglected ones.

Gyms and studios (66 listings). Well maintained, with 84.1% updated in the past year and only 3 abandoned apps. Ratings were high (median 4.9) but thin: 37.9% had no rating, and the median rated app had a couple of ratings from loyal members.

Credit unions (58 listings). The best maintained group, with 93.1% updated in the past year and no abandoned apps, and the most rated: 98.3% had ratings and the median count was over 160. They were also rated the lowest (median 3.9), which is common for banking apps everywhere.

Local and home services (32 listings). Mostly car washes, cleaning and laundry services. Well maintained (87.5% updated in a year), with 37.5% appearing platform-built, largely car wash membership apps.

Salons and barbers (29 listings). A mixed group. Only 68.2% of dated listings were updated in a year, and seven App Store listings showed no update date at all. Rated apps scored very well (median 5.0), but 37.9% had no rating.

Real estate (17 listings). Agent and brokerage apps. Few were updated recently (60.0% in a year) and 58.8% had no rating. Many real estate apps we found were portals rather than an agent's own app, and we removed those.

Clinics and pharmacies (13 listings). A small group, so the percentages are fragile. Most were updated recently, but 2 of 12 dated listings were abandoned. Health startups and telehealth platforms were removed because they are not a local clinic's own app.

Retail and grocery (12 listings). Also small. Independent grocers and boutiques were well rated (median 4.9). National chains and price-comparison apps were removed.

App Store vs Google Play

The two stores gave us different pictures of the same market, partly because of what each store shows and partly because of which businesses each search surfaced.

The headline for owners: on Google Play, an app that is not updated slowly disappears for new customers, while on the App Store it stays visible and simply ages in public. Neither outcome is good, but the App Store version is the more embarrassing one, because people can still find and install the old app. That matters in Canada, where iOS has the larger share of phones. Our mobile app statistics for 2026 cover the Canadian iOS and Android split with sources.

What it means if you have an app

If your business already has an app, this study suggests three questions worth answering this month: when was it last updated, which store rules does it now fail, and who controls it.

A quick self-check

• Find the last update date on both store listings. If it is more than a year ago, plan an update. If it is more than two years ago, plan an assessment first, because the update may turn out to be a rebuild.
• Android: if the Google Play app was last published before August 31, 2026, the next update must target API 36 and be tested for Android 16 behaviour changes. If it was last published before August 31, 2025, new users on newer phones may already be unable to find it.
• iOS: if the App Store app was last updated before April 28, 2026, the next update must be built with Xcode 26. If its minimum is below iOS 13, raise it. If it has not been updated in three years and few people download it, Apple may flag it for removal.
• Privacy details: Apple requires privacy information "to submit new apps and app updates", including the practices of third-party code in your app, and Google says all developers with a published app "must complete the Data safety form". Old apps often carry analytics or advertising libraries nobody remembers adding. Check what your app actually collects before you update the labels.
• Ratings: if your app has fewer than 10 ratings, you are in the majority, but you are also invisible. Ask for a rating after a good moment, such as a completed order or a booked class, using the stores' built-in prompts.
• Control: if a platform vendor publishes your app, find out who owns the listing, the reviews and the customer accounts if you leave.

Update, rescue or rebuild

Most apps in this sample need routine care, not rescue. For an app updated within the last year, keeping it current is maintenance. Our price sheet puts maintenance at roughly 15 to 20% of the build cost per year, so for an app that cost $10,000 to build, that is about $1,500 to $2,000 a year. Our maintenance and support plans cover SDK updates, store rule changes and fixes, and our guide to app maintenance explains what that work involves.

For the 11.3% of apps idle for two years or more, an update often becomes a rescue. The code may not build with current tools, libraries may be gone, and the original developer may be unreachable. An app rescue starts with an assessment of the code and the store accounts, then a written recommendation. If a rebuild is the better choice, it is priced like a new app of the same size: $5,000 to $12,000 for a single-platform app, $8,000 to $18,000 for iOS and Android together, and from about $25,000 for complex apps. Our guide on whether to rebuild or update an old app sets out how to decide.

What it means if you want an app

If you are thinking about an app, this study is mostly encouraging. Three quarters of small business apps in Canada are kept current, and a customer app is a normal thing for a gym, a credit union or a car wash to have. It also shows the traps clearly.

• Budget for the second year, not just the first. The abandoned apps in this sample were almost certainly launched with good intentions. What usually fails is the plan for keeping them going. Count maintenance from day one.
• Decide who controls the listing. A platform app can be the right start for a restaurant that needs ordering quickly. If the app will become central to how you sell, build it under your own developer accounts so the listing, reviews and data stay yours.
• Keep the first version small. Most small business apps serve hundreds or a few thousand customers. Start with the one job customers repeat most, such as ordering, booking or a membership card, and add features once people use it.
• Plan for ratings. Most apps in this sample had almost no ratings. Build the rating prompt into the moment of success, not into the first launch.
• Build both stores if your customers use both. In Canada, iOS has the larger share, but leaving out Android leaves out a large group of customers. A cross-platform build covers both from one codebase.

On cost, our prices start from $4,999 CAD. A focused MVP runs $5,000 to $15,000, a single-platform app $5,000 to $12,000, an iOS and Android app $8,000 to $18,000, and an app with a matching website $12,000 to $25,000. Complex apps, such as marketplaces or on-demand delivery, start around $25,000 and are quoted individually. You can get a planning range for your own idea in two minutes with the app cost calculator, read about our MVP development service, or see the full breakdown in how much an app costs in Canada. If you are not yet sure you need one, our list of signs your business needs a mobile app is a good place to start.

How we did it

We collected all data on November 1, 2026 through DataForSEO's App Data API, which returns public listing data from Google Play and the Apple App Store. All searches and listings used the Canadian storefront (location Canada, language English).

Step 1: searches

We ran 190 searches on each store, 380 in all. Each search paired a business term with one of ten Canadian cities: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Halifax, Mississauga and Saskatoon. The 19 business terms were restaurant, pizza, cafe, clinic, dental, physiotherapy, gym, yoga studio, salon, barber, boutique, grocery, real estate, plumbing heating, contractor, credit union, car wash, cleaning service and pet grooming. The searches returned 23,284 results, which reduced to 7,317 unique apps (1,880 on Google Play and 5,437 on the App Store).

Step 2: candidates

We removed obvious non-candidates by name before downloading full listings: games, transit apps, government and city apps, news, national brands and chains, and large delivery marketplaces. On the App Store we kept apps ranking in the top 20 of a search with fewer than 3,000 ratings; on Google Play we kept the most relevant 1,150 of the remaining 1,576. We downloaded full listings for 2,310 apps (1,147 Google Play and 1,163 App Store).

Step 3: how we decided an app was Canadian

An app counted as Canadian if any of these held, checked in this order:

• the Google Play developer address was in Canada (96 final listings);
• the App Store developer name matched a Google Play developer with a Canadian address (23);
• the developer was a Canadian numbered company, such as "1234567 Ontario Inc." or "9123-4567 Québec inc." (36);
• the listing text named a Canadian city, with checks against same-named US cities (130), a province (13) or a Canadian postal code (1);
• the app title contained "Canada" or a province (11).

The App Store does not publish a developer address in the data we used, so App Store apps relied more on listing text. That is why the last two tests carry so much weight.

Step 4: how we decided it was a small or mid-sized local business

We kept apps from the eight business types listed earlier, using keyword rules on the title and description, and removed apps whose store category pointed to business software, education, navigation or games. We set a size ceiling: fewer than 500,000 installs on Google Play and fewer than 3,000 ratings in the Canadian App Store. That left 424 listings.

Then we read every one of the 424 listings by hand and removed 114 that the rules had let through: 62 marketplaces, directories and guides; 21 consumer tools and software products, such as telehealth services; 20 large or multinational chains; 9 public bodies and non-profits; and 2 others outside the eight types. The 310 that remained are the sample.

Step 5: measures

• Recency: days from the last update date to November 1, 2026. Eighteen App Store listings showed no date and are left out of recency figures.
• Abandoned: last update more than 730 days before November 1, 2026.
• Android target: inferred from the last update date against Google's target API dates and the Android 15 release date of September 3, 2024.
• Apple build rules: last update date against the dates on Apple's Upcoming Requirements page, and the minimum iOS version shown on the listing.
• Ratings: rating value and count as shown in the Canadian storefront.
• Platform-built (inference): the developer account is a booking, ordering, loyalty or app-builder company, or publishes apps for three or more businesses in our sample.
• Correlation: Spearman rank correlation between days since update and rating, for listings with 5 or more ratings.

We report only aggregates. We do not name or single out any business in this study.

Limitations

• It is a sample, not a census. 310 listings from searches in ten cities. It is not a random sample of every Canadian small business app, and the results describe what a customer searching these stores would find.
• Search shapes the sample. Each store's search ranking decides what we saw. Google Play likely hides apps that fail its target rule from some searches, so our Google Play figures probably under-count stale apps.
• The Canadian tests can miss and can err. Apps that never mention a city, province or Canadian company name were left out, so the sample leans toward businesses that name their location. A few apps may belong to businesses that have moved or closed.
• Small groups. Clinics (13), retail (12) and real estate (17) are too small for firm conclusions. Trades were too rare to report on.
• No version history. We see the last update, not how often an app is updated, so "cadence" here means recency.
• Target API is inferred, not read. Google Play does not show the target level on a listing. Our bands are bounds based on dates.
• Privacy labels and in-app purchases were not measured. The listing data we used did not include Apple's privacy details, Google's Data safety section or a reliable in-app purchase flag, so we could not report on their completeness. Every app in the sample was free to download.
• Platform-built is an inference. It is based on developer account names. It cannot see shared software published under a business's own name, so the true share is likely higher.
• Ratings are store-specific. App Store figures are for the Canadian storefront only, and Google hides counts for apps with very few ratings.
• One day. Everything was measured on November 1, 2026. Apps update constantly, so individual figures will drift.

We plan to repeat this study and will note any change in method when we do. The raw listing data is kept private to protect the businesses in it, but we are happy to answer questions about the method. See our editorial standards for how we research and correct our work.

Cite this study

You are welcome to quote or chart any figure from this study, with a link to this page. Suggested citation:

Hai, H. (2026, November 1). Canadian Small Business Apps in 2026: What 310 App Store and Google Play Listings Reveal. mobileapplication.ca. https://mobileapplication.ca/blog/canadian-small-business-apps-study-2026

Short form for articles: "according to a November 2026 study of 310 Canadian small business apps by mobileapplication.ca". If you are a journalist or researcher and need a figure broken down differently, use the contact form.