Q5: The Secret to Growing Your Health & Fitness App Subscriptions

In January 2025, global health and fitness app downloads reached 3.6 billion, marking a 6% year-over-year increase across App Store and Google Play. The key insight is that this surge began during Q5, the post-holiday period when users are most motivated to change their habits. 

While many brands slow down after the holidays, smart marketers know it’s time to step up their game. During Q5, ad costs drop as competition eases, but user motivation skyrockets.

People unwrap their presents, set ambitious goals, and look for solutions to help them stay consistent. For H&F apps, this combination of high intent and low acquisition cost creates a rare opportunity to boost trials and paid subscriptions before Q1 even begins.

What Is Q5 and Why It’s a Goldmine for Your App

Unlike an official fiscal quarter, Q5 is the hidden “bonus period” that begins right after Christmas and ends in mid-January. While most brands slow down during this time, consumers do the opposite. They stay online, browse more, and actively look for ways to improve their lives.

Reteno’s analysis of popular fitness and yoga apps shows that “quarter five” drives an average 127% increase in conversions compared to the previous and following months. Put simply, the Q5 “resolution window” more than doubles the conversion volume typically seen throughout the rest of the year.

The following factors contribute to the promising nature of this brief period:

1. Lower competition. Many advertisers pause their campaigns after the Q4 frenzy, which leads to softer auctions and significantly cheaper cost per mille (CPM).
2. Higher consumer engagement. With new devices, gift cards, extra free time, and the “New Year, New Me” mindset, users spend more hours inside apps. In fact, Q5 consistently brings elevated engagement, even compared to peak holiday periods.
3. Intent is at its annual peak. This is the moment when people decide to change their routines, set resolutions, and take action. Surveys repeatedly show a spike in fitness and wellness commitments in early January, making Q5 the perfect time for H&F apps to capture motivated users.

Combine this readiness to change with cheaper reach and sustained attention, and you get the ideal opportunity to align your value proposition (habit-forming workouts and goal-driven plans) with real customer intent.

How to Win Q5 with Reteno

1. Speak the Resolution Language

Q5 users have a unique mindset: 80% of them make health-related New Year’s resolutions, which causes a spike in mobile activity. This is the perfect moment to meet them with messaging that feels natural, personal, and achievable.

Use notifications that include words like “start,” “reset,” and “begin” to create excitement. For example: “Start today,” “3-day reset,” or “Your healthiest year begins now.”

By doing so, you’re promoting the product’s features while helping users keep a promise they’ve already made to themselves.

2. Segment Your Contacts by Goal

Behavior-based segmentation consistently outperforms demographic targeting. Reports show that goal-oriented segments (e.g., weight loss, strength training, and meditation) have significantly higher retention and conversion rates than broad audience groups.

Reteno’s dynamic segmentation lets you tailor messaging based on:

• Fitness goal
• Recent activity
• Device type (many Q5 users activate new devices post-holiday)
• Motivation signals

When consumers see content aligned with their specific intent, subscription lift increases, sometimes by double digits.

3. Accelerate the “Aha!” Moment

Q5 brings high install volume, but early motivation fades quickly. Studies show that users who reach their first milestone within 24 hours are three times more likely to remain active.

Use triggered notifications to quickly guide users to success, such as “Complete your first workout in 60 seconds” or “Generate your personalized meal plan now.”

These micro-wins lock in momentum and dramatically improve trial-to-paid conversion rates.

4. Scale Winning Messages with “One from Many”

The unofficial “magic quarter” moves fast, and so should your experimentation. Instead of manually building endless A/B tests, Reteno’s “One from Many” solution generates multiple variants of push, email, and in-app messages, then automatically selects the top performer.

This approach is particularly relevant in Q5 because CPM tends to decline between December 26 and early January, making it the optimal period to conduct rapid-fire tests and identify messages that can generate high subscription rates.

5. Protect Long-Term Value with Fatigue Management

New Year’s enthusiasm doesn’t give you a license to be spammy. Messaging fatigue is real: mobile marketers who overcommunicate see unsubscribes and push opt-outs rise by 35–50%.

Reteno enables smart fatigue scoring that helps you:

• Cap frequency per user
• Pause flows for overloaded segments
• Prioritize high-LTV cohorts
• Prevent overexposure during your busiest season

The result is stronger customer engagement and healthier recurrent revenue curves extending into the upcoming Q1.

Bottom Line

Quarter 5 offers your health and fitness app a narrow yet powerful opportunity: motivated users, cheaper reach, and the highest subscription intent of the entire year. If you capitalize on this short window, you will be the one who moves quickly, personalizes intelligently, and automates processes that others still perform manually.

That’s exactly where Reteno gives you the edge. Our platform helps you turn Q5’s energy into installs that convert into real subscription growth. How? With dynamic goal-based segmentation, instant activation flows, AI-driven A/B testing, and fatigue-proof engagement control.

Ready to turn this year’s post-holiday period into sustained revenue growth? There are two simple next steps:

👉 Choose a Reteno subscription plan and launch high-performance Q5 journeys today.

👉 Book a personalized demo and let our team show you how to transform a seasonal boost into your strongest quarter yet.

The Q5 won’t wait, and neither should you!