Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them
It would be useful to see the level of success HN'ers have had with iPhone apps. Several articles mention general statistics, but what is the level of success for a population with the background of people who read HN?
So, if you have published iPhone apps, can you tell us
a) How many apps have you published?
b) How many are paid vs free?
c) How much effort have you put into marketing them?
d) What is the level of income you get from them?You can simply use one of the following levels: negligible, small, decent, large, or huge, or you can provide more details or actual numbers if you'd like
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
56 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadAlso, by $10K in signups, does that mean seven or so signups for a $1.5K course?
They charged us in the neighborhood of $10,000 to program the app and submit it to the store.
That is to say people who checked "iPhone app" in the "how did you hear about us" section during signup. It was about 6-7 signups per month, and I believe it's still bringing in signups (I no longer work there).
I'm particularly curious because I recently started a mobile contracting company for iPhone and Android applications, as well as websites. We've only been doing fixed price contracts so far, but we've been wanting to try our hand at writing our own applications too. We're just about done with our first three applications (in the process of getting one into the App Store, and two more are ETA to be done by the end of the week).
In case you're wondering what normal costs are for mobile application contracting: For simple apps, a fixed price would be in the $500 to $2000 range; something moderately complicated - say, an interface to a social network - would be in the $4000-6000 range; after that it usually goes on a case by case basis depending on what the customer wants.
(By the way, completely shameless plug: we're going to be done with our currently running contracts soon... so if anyone happens to be interested, contact info is in my profile. We build websites, Android, iPhone, and iPad apps, mostly.)
b) all free
c) zero
d) negligible (< $100)
I also vary the price a lot and VERY REGULARLY, although only since it's slipped from the charts. Varying from £.59 to £2.99. You might be surprised at the effect this has... The higher price tends not to affect the number of sales too much so I try to keep this as high as possible.
The second app is a little more niche. The only advertising (after an initial flurry of tweets) has been via links on my website (just for promoting my freelance work) and the website of the content owner.
So... A) 2 B) both paid C) see above D) £2500 - £4000 per month
b) 1 paid, 1 free (ad-supported)
c) none, other than a blog post
d) small (~$800 total sales, ~$30/month from ads)
And shame on you for violating the GPL!
I've published 2 apps, one paid (Whiteboard Capture Pro), one free (Picture Me). Picture Me code is open sourced as well (http://bit.ly/7rmKdT). Originally I did some marketing with Google Adsense but it's too hard to track its success so I stopped. I've had some free marketing thanks to mentions in blogs, etc. Recently Apple even made a super awesome video about one of the apps (http://bit.ly/cbtkg3).
Income wise, it's decent. Surprisingly stable at it's current level. Let's just say it's paid for a WWDC trip, three iPhones and 2 iPads and there is plenty left over, plenty.
If somebody did just re-submit it as a paid app I'd be fine with that. It is open source after all. I do think that's unfair to end-users though who probably wouldn't know it's free and it would add to the clutter of the App Store.
B) All are paid.
C) Zero.
D) Almost $5000 between all three. When you consider it took me maybe two weeks worth of work, it's decent pay. If you factor a percentage of the pay from all of the contract leads those apps have generated, we're talking about serious money.
Really appreciate the sharing!
Simple and mindless(pardon not meant negatively) sells. Make apps for the audience who buys apps; males 18 to 34(though 34 might be a bit high) if you aim is to money. Something that makes people laugh and want to share it with their friends who buy it and share it with their friends and so on. iFart & Fat Booth(though idea is mindless but tech isnt) are further examples.
Aren't people allowed to not like an app?
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dF...
Please look at it and make suggestions about what I am missing. I will of course publish all the data.
thanks a lot!
I wrote a post with some more detailed stats on Meter Maid sales: http://blog.zachwaugh.com/post/558531800/metermaid-sales-sta...
b) 1 paid, 1 free (ad-supported)
c) some adsense, twitter, blog posts, Web site
d) ~3k over 3 months, almost nothing from ads
b) Both are paid apps, the standard version is in-app upgradable to pro
c) We've put a small amount of effort into marketing them via adwords. Approximately $150/month in ad spend results in more than $600 additional profits. Since it is a very niche market, the ads are highly targeted. We're about to branch into some additional marketing on related sites and should be getting some press soon in a big industry mag. Hopefully they will have good returns on them.
d) Combined income from both apps (including in-app upgrades) has exceeded $1000/month for the last 3 months and is growing at a pretty significant rate. This month has already exceeded last month by almost 20%
The apps did require a pretty significant amount of development (client and server apps as well as the marketing website) and my return thus far comes out to about $15/hour but is rapidly increasing.
We're about to begin development on versions of the app for Windows and Android so that we can extend our potential client base beyond just iDevice owners.
b) 7 paid, 1 ad-supported, the rest free
c) Very little
d) Total: large. Some do quite poorly, some do well.
These are on Cydia Store. I've also released a single App Store app that did alright.