What Features Should You Remove to Beat Competitors?

The average mobile app loses 77% of its daily active users within the first three days after installation. I've watched this happen time and again, and you know what the biggest culprit is? Its not poor marketing or bad design—it's feature bloat. Apps that try to do everything end up doing nothing particularly well, and users can smell that from a mile away.

After building apps for nearly a decade, working with everyone from bootstrapped startups to massive corporations with unlimited budgets, I've learned something counterintuitive: the apps that win aren't the ones with the most features. They're the ones that know what to leave out. When a fintech client came to us wanting to add social sharing, gamification, news feeds, and cryptocurrency tracking to their simple budgeting app, we had a proper conversation about what would actually serve their users. Spoiler alert—they didn't need any of it.

The hardest part of building a successful app isn't figuring out what to add; it's having the discipline to decide what doesn't belong there in the first place.

This guide is going to challenge how you think about competitive advantage in mobile apps. We're not going to talk about adding features to match your competitors. Instead, I'm going to show you why removing features—yes, actively taking things away—can be your strongest strategic move. I've seen apps double their retention rates by cutting 40% of their functionality. Sounds mad, doesn't it? But the data backs it up every single time. We'll look at real examples from healthcare apps that stripped out complexity, e-commerce platforms that simplified their checkout flows, and productivity tools that succeeded by doing less, not more. Because at the end of the day, your users don't want more features. They want their problem solved, quickly and without fuss.

Why More Features Don't Mean Better Apps

I once worked with a fintech startup that had built what they called a "super app" for personal finance. It could track spending, create budgets, scan receipts, calculate tax, manage investments, and about fifteen other things. Sounds brilliant, right? Wrong. Their retention rate after seven days was about 8%. Users would download it, open it once, get completely overwhelmed, and never come back. The app had everything but what it really needed—clarity of purpose.

Here's what happens when you pack too many features into an app: nobody knows what its for anymore. I mean, is it a budget tracker? An investment tool? A receipt scanner? When an app tries to do everything, it does nothing particularly well. And users? They've got enough apps on their phones already; they need to understand yours in about three seconds or they're gone.

The data backs this up too. I've seen analytics from healthcare apps where 70% of users never touched features that took months to build. One e-commerce client spent £40,000 developing a social sharing feature that got used by less than 2% of their user base. That's money that could've gone into making their checkout process faster or their search function better—things people actually cared about.

But there's another problem with feature bloat that doesn't get talked about enough: it makes your app slower and buggier. Every feature you add is more code that can break, more things that need testing, more complexity that slows down load times. I've worked on apps where removing unused features actually improved app store ratings because the whole thing became more stable and responsive. Users noticed the difference even though they never used those features anyway.

The best apps I've built have always been the ones with ruthless focus. They do one thing exceptionally well rather than ten things adequately. Instagram started as just photo filters and sharing. WhatsApp was just messaging without all the bells and whistles of competitors. These apps succeeded precisely because they said no to features, not in spite of it.

Understanding What Your Users Actually Use

Most app founders are shocked when they see their analytics for the first time. I mean genuinely shocked. You build twenty features thinking they're all equally important, then discover 80% of your users only touch three of them. It's a bit mad really, but its the reality I see over and over again.

The trick is knowing which data to look at—downloads and active users tell you nothing useful about feature adoption. What you need is event tracking, session recordings, and cohort analysis broken down by user segments. When we worked on a fintech app that had nine different investment tools, we discovered something interesting; 89% of users only used the basic portfolio tracker and ignored everything else. The client had spent months building complex tax calculators and loan calculator integrations that barely got touched. Once we removed six of those features and improved the main tracker, user satisfaction scores went up by 34%. Less really was more in this case.

Heat maps are brilliant for this too. They show you where people tap, scroll, and most importantly where they get stuck or confused. On an e-commerce app we built, heat maps revealed that users kept tapping on product images expecting them to zoom, but the feature didn't exist. Meanwhile, the client wanted to add a colour customisation tool that nobody was asking for. We killed the customisation feature, added proper image zoom, and conversion rates improved almost immediately.

Set up event tracking for every single feature before you launch—you cant make informed decisions without proper data, and retrofitting analytics is always messier than building it in from the start.

The 30-Day Rule for Feature Usage

Here's what I tell clients; if less than 15% of your active users engage with a feature within their first 30 days, its probably not as important as you think it is. Sure there are exceptions (like annual tax tools in finance apps), but generally speaking, features that dont get used early dont get used at all. We saw this with a healthcare app that had a symptom checker buried in the settings menu—only 3% of users ever found it, despite it being one of the apps most sophisticated features. Moving it didnt help either because users simply didnt want it; they wanted appointment booking and prescription refills, which they used religiously.

Features That Push Users Away

I've watched countless apps fail because they included features that actively annoyed users—and the worst part? The development teams were usually shocked when I pointed them out. These aren't just unnecessary features; they're features that make people want to delete your app entirely. Big difference.

Forced account creation before users can even explore your app is probably the biggest offender I see. We built an e-commerce app a while back where the client insisted every visitor needed to register immediately. Their bounce rate was 73%. We changed it so people could browse first and only register at checkout, and that number dropped to 31%. Its honestly one of the easiest wins you can get, but so many companies still get it wrong because they're desperate to capture user data.

The Notification Problem

Push notifications that ask for permission on first launch? Terrible idea. Users have no relationship with your app yet—why would they say yes? I always tell clients to wait until users have experienced some value first. We worked on a fitness app that asked for notification permission after a user completed their first workout instead of immediately at launch, and opt-in rates went from 19% to 64%. The difference was night and day.

Features That Interrupt Flow

Interstitial ads between every action, rating prompts that appear at the worst possible moments, tutorial overlays that won't go away... these are all features designed to benefit the business, not the user. And users can smell that a mile away. I've seen apps with genuinely useful core functionality get terrible reviews purely because they interrupt users too often. The healthcare app we built last year initially had a "rate us" prompt after every completed task—patients hated it. We moved it to appear only after five successful uses, and suddenly our App Store rating jumped from 3.2 to 4.6 stars. Same app, just less annoying.

When Industry Standards Work Against You

Here's something that might sound a bit mad—sometimes the features everyone expects you to have are the exact ones you should remove. I've worked on several fintech apps where clients insisted on adding every security feature and verification step their competitors had, and you know what happened? Their completion rates dropped through the floor. Users were abandoning the sign-up process because it felt like filling out a mortgage application just to check their balance.

Industry standards exist for good reasons, sure, but they also exist because nobody wants to be the first to try something different. Take shopping apps, for example. Most e-commerce platforms have wish lists, product ratings, share buttons, and about fifteen other features that seem mandatory. But when we stripped back a fashion retail app to just search, browse, and buy—basically removing half the "standard" features—the conversion rate actually went up by 23%. Turns out people just wanted to shop, not manage lists they'd never look at again.

The most successful apps I've built weren't the ones that matched every competitor feature for feature; they were the ones brave enough to say no to things that didn't serve their specific users.

The tricky bit is knowing which standards you can safely ignore. If you're building a banking app, you cant just remove two-factor authentication because its annoying—some standards exist for legal and security reasons. But those six different ways to contact customer support? That social sharing feature nobody uses? Those progress indicators on every single screen? They're probably safe to question. I've seen healthcare apps remove entire sections that everyone assumed were necessary (like detailed medication histories visible on every screen) and patients actually reported feeling less overwhelmed and more in control of their treatment information.

The Cost of Maintaining Unused Features

Here's something most clients don't realise until its too late—every feature in your app costs money, even when nobody uses it. I mean, we're not just talking about the initial development cost; we're talking about ongoing maintenance that adds up month after month. When Apple releases iOS 18 or Google pushes out a new Android version, every single feature in your app needs testing. Every. Single. One. And if you've got a payment gateway that three people used last quarter? You're still paying to keep it compliant with PCI-DSS standards, still testing it with every update, still monitoring it for security vulnerabilities.

I worked on an e-commerce app where the client insisted on keeping a "wish list sharing" feature that had a 0.2% usage rate. Sounds harmless, right? But here's the thing—that feature integrated with social media APIs, required server-side storage, needed push notification logic, and had its own set of privacy considerations under GDPR. Every time Facebook changed their API (which happens constantly, honestly), we had to update that feature. Every server migration included that database table. Every security audit had to examine those data flows. The cost? Roughly £800-1200 per year just to babysit a feature almost nobody touched.

Then there's the hidden cost of complexity itself. Each unused feature makes your codebase harder to navigate, slows down new developer onboarding, and increases the chance of bugs creeping in elsewhere. I've seen apps crash because of conflicts between a rarely-used feature and a new implementation—debugging those issues can take days. When you remove features that aren't pulling their weight, you're not just cutting costs; you're making your entire app more stable and easier to improve going forward.

Making Strategic Removal Decisions

Right, so you've identified which features aren't pulling their weight—now comes the tricky bit. Actually deciding what to remove and in what order. I've had clients who wanted to strip out everything at once (terrible idea) and others who were so paralysed by fear they'd rather keep paying thousands in server costs than make a single cut. Neither approach works.

The key is creating a framework that takes emotion out of the decision. I usually start with a simple scoring system that looks at four factors: usage data, development cost, maintenance burden, and strategic value. That last one's important because sometimes a feature has low usage but high strategic importance—like accessibility features that serve a small but vital user group. You cant just look at numbers alone.

Here's how I prioritise what gets removed first:

• Features with under 5% usage and high maintenance costs—these are your quick wins
• Duplicate functionality that overlaps with newer features you've built
• Power user features that confuse 90% of your audience
• Third-party integrations that require constant updates but deliver minimal value
• Customisation options that create support headaches

One healthcare app I worked on had seventeen different report types. Seventeen! Usage data showed 80% of users only touched three of them. We removed twelve in one go, kept two legacy ones for specific clients, and the support tickets dropped by 40%. The app also loaded faster because we'd simplified the data structures. But here's the thing—we didn't just delete them overnight. We deprecated them first, gave users notice, and built clear migration paths to the features that replaced them. That's the difference between strategic removal and just breaking your app.

Create a "removal roadmap" that spaces out cuts over 3-6 months rather than doing everything at once—it gives you time to monitor impact and adjust if something goes wrong.

How to Test Before You Remove

Right then, let me share something I learned the hard way—removing features without proper testing is like driving blindfolded. You might get lucky, but probably not. I've seen companies strip out features based on gut feeling only to watch their retention rates drop like a stone. Testing isn't optional; its your safety net and honestly, it's saved me from some terrible decisions over the years.

The best approach I've found is what I call "soft removal"—basically making a feature harder to find without deleting it completely. On an e-commerce app we worked on, we moved a rarely-used wishlist sharing feature three levels deep in the menu structure. Usage dropped to nearly zero, which told us it was safe to remove. But here's the thing—if we'd seen people actively searching for it or support tickets flooding in, we would've known it mattered more than the analytics suggested.

Testing Methods That Actually Work

A/B testing is your best friend here, though it does require enough users to get meaningful data (I'd say at least 1,000 active users minimum). Create two versions of your app—one with the feature, one without—and split your user base. Monitor everything: session length, completion rates, support requests, app store reviews. The data will tell you what words from users wont.

What to Monitor During Testing

• User engagement metrics before and after changes
• Support ticket volume and content (are people asking where something went?)
• App store review sentiment and specific complaints
• Session recordings to see how users navigate without the feature
• Net Promoter Score changes among test groups

I always run tests for at least two weeks, sometimes four if it's a feature that gets used monthly. Quick tests miss patterns. And you know what? Sometimes the data surprises you—that feature you thought nobody cared about might be the reason a small but valuable user segment stays loyal to your app.

What to Do After Removing Features

Right, so you've actually gone ahead and removed those features—now comes the bit that most teams get wrong. They think the work is done. It isn't. The real work starts once users notice something's missing, and trust me, they will notice even if they never used it. I learned this the hard way on a healthcare app project where we removed a rarely-used appointment sharing feature; usage data showed less than 2% touched it, but we still got complaints from users who "might have needed it someday". Its mad really.

First thing you need to do is watch your support channels like a hawk for about two weeks after the update goes live. Set up alerts for keywords related to the removed features so you can respond quickly when questions come up. Be honest with users about why the feature's gone—people appreciate transparency more than corporate speak. I usually recommend something like "we removed X because only a handful of people used it, and it was slowing down the experience for everyone else". Simple. Direct. True.

The data you collect after removing a feature is often more valuable than the data you had before you removed it

Monitor your retention metrics obsessively during this period; if you see a drop that lasts more than a week, you might have miscalculated the feature's importance. But here's what's interesting—in about 80% of the removals I've overseen, retention actually improved slightly because the app felt faster and less cluttered. Use this period to communicate the benefits users are now getting... faster load times, simpler navigation, better battery life. Make them see what they gained, not just what they lost. And whatever you do, don't roll back at the first sign of complaints unless the data shows a real problem.

Conclusion

The hardest part about removing features isn't the technical work—it's getting everyone to agree that less can actually be more. I've sat through countless meetings where product teams defended features that maybe 2% of users touched, simply because someone spent three months building them. But here's what I've learned after years of helping clients slim down their apps: the best performing apps I've built are almost always the ones where we had the courage to say no.

Look, removing features isn't about making your app worse. Its about making it better at the things that actually matter to your users. Every feature you remove means faster load times, fewer bugs to fix, less code to maintain, and a clearer user experience for the people who matter. I worked on an e-commerce app where we stripped out their wishlist feature—sounds mad, right? But the data showed only 3% of users ever touched it, and those who did rarely converted from it. Within two months of removal, their overall conversion rate went up because the checkout flow became more prominent and users weren't getting distracted.

The mobile landscape rewards focus now. Not breadth. Your competitors are probably still adding features thinking more equals better, which gives you a genuine advantage if you're willing to go the other direction. Start small, test thoroughly, and don't be afraid to bring features back if you got it wrong. But I'll bet you wont need to most of the time... because once you see how much faster your app runs and how much clearer your user journey becomes, you'll wonder why you waited so long to simplify.