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How much money you make?

C

Crobilss

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 17, 2011
19
0
Hi to all,

i'm at the end of my first app, i'm waiting for approval. Also i work on project for university about some statistic, so you can help me.
Im interested how much money you earn monthly or from putting app on market?

Let's make it simple. It can be a free app or paid.

Name:
Date of release:
Price:
Sold:
Money earned:
 
If they share earns from adds, why not this also? It can be a approximate.
Dont see anything bad in this thread
 
Angry Bird
December 11th, 2009
0.99$(iOS) free (android)
Rovio receives approximately US$1 million per month in revenue from the advertising that appears in the free Android version.[4]
Click to expand...

Start by finding public information. I don't see why any small developer would want to tell you there financials.
 
Last edited:
Lots of people won't share this info, they might tell you how much but not which app etc
 
Most consider this to be too personal to share on a public internet forum.

Also, the stats would be near worthless. You'd need a large sample set to get a good result.

A study was done a while back and showed 80% of the app devs shared 3% of the money. You could get 500 responses here and have zero in the top 20% It's nowhere close to a normal bell distribution.

I think the thread below this one, discusses this.
 
Only Apple has those statistics. They are most likely considered highly confidential financial information. So the odds are that you won't be able get it.

However there are various estimates on the net of an approximately power law (or negative exponential) distribution curve for app income. Search.
 
I know that people wont share that thing, but if you look on android PlayMarket you will find for every app no. of downloads.
Exp. 5.000+, 10.000+, 500.000+ etc.
If you see price of app, you can approx. caluclate earnings.

On iTunes you cant see that information, so i wanna make some research on forum, but it looks that people is untrustable.

Exp. we can make:

Price:
No. of downloads in range 1.000-10.000, 10.000-50.000, 50.000-100.000 etc
 
imho, the money in iPhone business is selling to retailers as consultancy, let's say, an advertisement bureau comes to you and asks you to make some fun apps, this is where the easy money is, you code for a while, you get 1 static amount, they are happy with their advertisement app and you can walk off and do another thing :)
Making an app yourself that generates money is alot harder, you just need to hit the right spot on the right time to the right public.. (so if you're only targeting teens, they will spend less via credit card then grownups, or at least.. here in Europe).
 
Don't forget that a lot of iOS apps earn money from serving ads and/or from in-app-purchases, often bringing in more revenue that way as free apps than similar paid versions of the app.
 
Hi to all,

i'm at the end of my first app, i'm waiting for approval. Also i work on project for university about some statistic, so you can help me.
Im interested how much money you earn monthly or from putting app on market?

Let's make it simple. It can be a free app or paid.
Click to expand...

Better yet tell me the name of your app and I will give you an idea of what you can expect to make off it.
 
Crobilss said:
If you see price of app, you can approx. caluclate earnings.
Click to expand...

Nope. The price of an app and it's earnings are not strongly correlated.

Some high priced apps sell more copies than some 99 cent apps or free apps. Some free apps bring in tons of revenue. But most apps (reportedly over 80% of all paid apps) sell very poorly at any price. So the only strong statistical relationship is with an income level of nearly nothing.
 
Crobilss said:
Hi to all,

i'm at the end of my first app, i'm waiting for approval. Also i work on project for university about some statistic, so you can help me.
Im interested how much money you earn monthly or from putting app on market?

Let's make it simple. It can be a free app or paid.

Name:
Date of release:
Price:
Sold:
Money earned:
Click to expand...

Here are my stats which I shamelessly share (I'm confused why everyone else doesn't share?)

Name: Egg Drop!
Category: iOS Arcade Game
Released: June 2011
Price: $0.99
Sold: 120 copies
Earned: $84

Name: Quick Clips
Category: iOS Utility
Released: September 2011
Price: Free / $0.99 to remove ads and get extra features
Sold: 10 K free / 10 paid
Earned: $10 ($7 from the ad removals, $3 from ads. Those are iAds. No matter how many thousands of impressions you have, percents of pennies still add up to nothing.)

Name: Battery Status
Category: Mac Utility
Released: January 2012
Price: $1.99 (most of the time. Has been $0.99 and $2.99 when I've experimented with other price points, but I found $1.99 is the most profitable for it.)
Sold: 500 from launch until August*. 2K and counting in August*.
Earned: $700 from launch until August*. $3.5K and counting in August*.

*MacWorld ran an article on what they call the 49 greatest Apps in the Mac App Store in their August issue. Battery Status was included, and sales exploded from it. After that, three other (smaller) websites decided to write their own reviews on it. The sales are dying down now, and I expect them to return to their typical 2 sales/day by September.
 
Last edited:
dejo said:
I've made thousands of dollars from my ad-supported app (a.k.a.). Are you calling me a liar?
Click to expand...

Yes, I was. I apologize. I've edited to remove the statement. I just find it frustrating how many articles told me that using ads was a great way of making money and I found it made me nothing. Obviously it's possible the entire idea of my app just wasn't a good one at all, and so that's why I made no money from it.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
I just find it frustrating how many articles told me that using ads was a great way of making money ...
Click to expand...

Ad are are great way of making money... for the very small percentage of apps that win the high download count and frequency of use lottery. Just because you didn't win this lottery doesn't mean the payoff odds are bad. The odds in the App store appear to be tons better in the developer's favor than playing the state lotto.
 
Is this a legal topic, or against forum rules? After re-reading them I'm not sure.

Usually things of this nature (at least on some forums) are highly discouraged.

It's not that it disturbs me, just wondering :)
 
ixodes said:
Usually things of this nature (at least on some forums) are highly discouraged.
Click to expand...

The original question appears to be quite rude. (In most parts of the world.)

But the title of this forum includes the words "App Store Business". And what is there to know about a business?
 
ixodes said:
Is this a legal topic, or against forum rules? After re-reading them I'm not sure.

Usually things of this nature (at least on some forums) are highly discouraged.

It's not that it disturbs me, just wondering :)
Click to expand...

I was under the impression MacRumors and various other Apple news sites were really interested in hearing these numbers, but for whatever reason a lot of people find them to be too private to share.
 
I read on every web site that on iphone app is easy to get rich. So i just try to get closer to this numbers, but people are not earning money on this site or they are unfriendly.
 
Crobilss said:
I read on every web site that on iphone app is easy to get rich.
Click to expand...

False. It is quite difficult to get rich. Less than 1%.

But hundreds/thousands do. Someone has to be getting the Billions of dollars that Apple has reported paying out to app developers (some big, some small) over the past couple years.

And asking people about their income is not considered friendly in many(most?) parts of the world. It's quite rude in some circles.
 
When I first begun app development I was making $99 a month.. Fastwarded to just over a year later Im getting around 15k a month

----------
ArtOfWarfare said:
Yes, I was. I apologize. I've edited to remove the statement. I just find it frustrating how many articles told me that using ads was a great way of making money and I found it made me nothing. Obviously it's possible the entire idea of my app just wasn't a good one at all, and so that's why I made no money from it.
Click to expand...

I generate about 1-3 million impressions a month which only rakes me in around 2-4k a month.. pathetic.. can't wait till xmas now.. bring in them high eCPM (for admob).
 
firewood said:
And asking people about their income is not considered friendly in many(most?) parts of the world. It's quite rude in some circles.
Click to expand...

I really don't understand why people consider it to be such private information how much money they do or don't make. Or most other things that people consider private. What harm does it do you or anyone else to know how much you make? Do you think it makes you a target? Consider the fact that I have stated how much money I make, and how that makes you feel. Imagine I had said a number 100x as much, how would that have made you feel? What about a number 1/100th as much? I expect your answer to all of those are: you don't. It might be interesting to you, but not much else. You are ordinary. Most people do not care. Announcing how much you make, no matter how high or low, changes little about how people perceive you.

My two cents (no pun intended.)
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
I really don't understand why people consider it to be such private information how much money they do or don't make. Or most other things that people consider private. What harm does it do you or anyone else to know how much you make? Do you think it makes you a target? Consider the fact that I have stated how much money I make, and how that makes you feel. Imagine I had said a number 100x as much, how would that have made you feel? What about a number 1/100th as much? I expect your answer to all of those are: you don't. It might be interesting to you, but not much else. You are ordinary. Most people do not care. Announcing how much you make, no matter how high or low, changes little about how people perceive you.

My two cents (no pun intended.)
Click to expand...

To keep it simple the only time I talk about money is when negotiating contracts. Perhaps Biggie said it best:
Rule nombre uno: Never let no one know.
How much, dough you hold, cause you know
The cheddar breed jealousy 'specially
If that man ****ed up, get your ass stuck up
Click to expand...
 
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