You probably think this app grows because people want to lose weight. That’s only half the story.

Noom looks like a simple habit-building product, but underneath it is a distribution machine that most indie apps never come close to building.

At roughly 50K downloads and about $1M in monthly revenue, this isn’t a novelty app or a viral spike. It’s a system. And it’s worth studying because almost everything it does goes against the “keep it simple” advice most founders hear.

Here’s how it actually works.

The first surprise is the onboarding. It’s painfully long. You’re forced to sign up before doing anything, then pushed through dozens of questions about goals, health, and lifestyle.

This isn’t accidental friction. It’s commitment engineering.

Then comes the paywall, and this is where it gets sneaky. The first screen says “try 7 days risk-free.” A moment later, you’re told it costs them money to give you a free trial.

Now you’re asked to enter payment details just to unlock that “free” period. This filters out curiosity-driven users and keeps only people who feel serious enough to proceed.

Growth-wise, paid ads do the heavy lifting. They don’t dabble. They dominate. Hundreds of App Store search keywords, thousands of Google creatives, and a constant flood on Facebook. When a company is everywhere like this, they’re not testing anymore. They’ve already found a profitable loop.

Their major growth driver is Paid ads.
📱 App Store search ads → 600+ keywords
📺 Google → ~2,000 ads
📘 Facebook → 300 ads

Most of their Google + FB ads point to the website. Onboarding and payment happens in the website.

Result?

They skip Apple’s 30% tax completely. pic.twitter.com/bjGnC1JSFJ

— AI, Ads & Apps  (@AIAdsApps) December 9, 2025

When you see that level of saturation, they’re not experimenting anymore. They’re scaling something that already works.

What’s clever is where those ads send traffic. A huge chunk lands on the website, not the app.

Onboarding and payment happen there. That single decision quietly removes Apple’s 30% tax from the equation and gives them more room to bid aggressively on ads.

At this scale, profitability comes from math, not magic. If a dollar in ads reliably returns more than a dollar in subscriptions, you can keep pouring fuel on the fire. Renewals just widen the gap over time.

This isn’t a breakthrough product. It’s ruthless sequencing. Heavy commitment first, massive distribution second, margins protected everywhere else.