The short version: Threads has grown into one of the fastest-adopted apps in history, with Meta reporting well over 350 million monthly active users heading into 2026, but downloads alone don’t tell you whether it will bring your business a single customer. I have posted on Threads for over two years and the honest picture is: great for visibility, weak for clicks, and only worth the time if you already have a content habit you can repurpose.
The actual download and user numbers
Threads launched on 5 July 2023 and signed up 100 million users in five days, which is still the fastest any consumer app has ever hit that mark, faster than ChatGPT and faster than TikTok’s early growth. That first burst mattered because it was mostly Instagram users clicking one button to join, not a slow organic build.
The growth then stalled hard. By August 2023, daily active users had dropped by more than 70% from the launch peak, and plenty of commentators wrote Threads off as another Meta app that would fade quietly. It didn’t fade, it just went quiet for a while.
Meta’s own reporting since then has shown steady climbs: over 175 million monthly active users by mid-2024, past 275 million by early 2025, and Mark Zuckerberg told investors in a 2025 earnings call that Threads had crossed 350 million monthly actives, with daily usage figures growing faster than the wider Meta family of apps. Coming into 2026, most third-party trackers put Threads somewhere between 400 and 450 million monthly active users, which puts it ahead of X (formerly Twitter) on several measures for the first time since Threads launched.
So the download and sign-up number is huge. That is not in question. What is in question is what those downloads mean for a business owner deciding where to spend an hour a day.
What the download figure doesn’t tell you
A download, or even a monthly active user count, tells you nothing about intent. Someone who opens Threads once a week to scroll for three minutes counts the same in Meta’s headline number as someone who logs in daily, comments, and clicks through to websites. Meta doesn’t break out how many of those 400 million-plus users post regularly versus lurk, and third-party estimates I have seen suggest the ratio of posters to lurkers is somewhere around 1 in 20, similar to most social platforms.
The bigger gap is link behaviour. Threads was built, deliberately, to keep people inside the app. Early on, Meta openly said it was cautious about political and news content and about outbound links, because that had caused problems for them on Facebook before. That caution has stuck around as a design choice: posts with external links get noticeably less algorithmic push than posts that keep the conversation native to Threads. This is the part most “should you use Threads” articles skip over, because it’s an uncomfortable fact for anyone trying to sell you on the platform: a huge user base does not translate into outbound traffic the way a growing follower count on, say, a blog or YouTube channel would.
My own numbers from two years on Threads
I started posting on Threads within the first month it launched, partly out of curiosity and partly because I didn’t want to be the marketing consultant telling clients to test something I hadn’t tested myself. Here’s what happened over roughly 26 months of fairly consistent posting, three to five times a week:
- Follower growth was quick early on: I went from zero to around 4,000 followers in the first three months, mostly pulled straight from my existing Instagram audience with one tap.
- Engagement on individual posts (likes, replies, reposts) has consistently outperformed the same content posted to X, sometimes by three or four times, especially on short, opinionated one-liners.
- Click-throughs to my website from Threads links have been the weakest of any platform I use. Across a six-month tracking period, Threads sent me roughly 40 clicks a month against several thousand impressions, a click-through rate under half a percent. Compare that to LinkedIn, where the same style of post routinely sends me 300 to 600 clicks a month.
- Direct business enquiries traced back to Threads: two, in two years. Both came from DMs after someone had seen several posts, not from a single viral moment.
That’s not a reason to write Threads off entirely. It’s a reason to be clear about what it’s good for, which is visibility and reputation, not lead generation in the way you’d expect from, say, some of the unconventional lead generation ideas I’ve tested elsewhere that are built specifically to convert.
Is Threads worth it for your business?
My blunt answer: it depends entirely on whether you already make content somewhere else, because Threads works best as a repurposing channel, not a starting point.
Here’s who I’d tell to bother with it:
- Anyone already writing LinkedIn posts, blog articles, or newsletter content who can chop that into short, punchy Threads posts in five minutes with no extra creative effort.
- B2C brands, especially in fashion, food, fitness, and creator-led businesses, where the informal, chatty tone of Threads fits the brand voice naturally.
- Anyone running a personal brand who wants to be seen as a real person with opinions, since Threads rewards personality and short takes more than polished corporate copy.
Here’s who I’d tell to skip it for now:
- B2B service businesses chasing leads, where LinkedIn still does the heavier lifting for enquiries and sales conversations.
- Anyone without a content habit already, because building one from scratch on Threads specifically, rather than starting where your audience already is, wastes time.
- E-commerce brands relying on link clicks to drive sales, given the algorithm’s clear bias against outbound links.
A simple way to test Threads without wasting a month
If you want to find out for yourself rather than take my word for it, run a proper two-week trial instead of a vague “let’s try Threads” plan that fizzles out:
- Pick five pieces of content you’ve already published elsewhere, a LinkedIn post, a paragraph from a blog, a strong line from a podcast episode, and rewrite each as a short, opinionated Threads post under 500 characters.
- Post at a consistent time, ideally between 7am and 9am UK time or 12pm to 2pm, when I’ve seen the strongest early engagement windows.
- Reply to every comment within the first hour. Threads rewards early engagement heavily in how far a post spreads, more so than most platforms.
- Track three numbers only: profile visits, follows gained, and any DM enquiries. Ignore likes, they mean almost nothing for business outcomes.
- After two weeks, compare the time spent against what the same hours would have produced on a channel you already know works, whether that’s email, LinkedIn, or even DMs through Facebook Messenger.
If you’re doing this on a shoestring, treat it the same way you would any other early-stage way of making money online: test small, measure honestly, and don’t fall for the fastest-growing-app headline as a reason on its own to commit real hours to it.
The part nobody wants to say out loud
Here’s the uncomfortable bit. Threads’ download numbers are impressive, and Meta will keep pointing to them because it makes the platform look unmissable. But a platform can have 400 million monthly users and still be a poor fit for your specific business if your customers aren’t spending meaningful time there with buying intent. Downloads measure curiosity. Revenue measures relevance. Those are two different things, and most of the “Threads for business” content out there conflates them because a big number is a more exciting headline than a small, honest one.
Related reading: business transcription jobs.
Frequently asked questions
How many downloads does Threads have in 2026?
Threads has surpassed 400 million monthly active users heading into 2026, having crossed 350 million during 2025 according to Meta’s own investor reporting, up from its record-breaking launch of 100 million sign-ups in the first five days back in July 2023.
Is Threads better than X for business?
Threads now has more monthly active users than X on most tracking measures, and engagement per post tends to be higher, but X still edges it for news, finance, and B2B networking conversations where professional audiences already gather.
Does Threads send traffic to websites?
Not much. Threads’ algorithm favours posts that keep users inside the app, so link clicks are typically far lower than platforms like LinkedIn or a blog’s own email list, based on both my own tracked data and wider reports from other marketers.
Should a small business bother with Threads at all?
Yes, but only if you already create content elsewhere that you can repurpose in minutes, since Threads works best as a visibility and brand-personality channel rather than a direct lead generation tool.
