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Ask HN: Do people make money from Facebook Apps?

8 points by abuzzooz ↗ HN
Hi all. Long time lurker, first time posing a question, so please be gentle. I searched HN but didn't find anything similar (not recent enough at least).

I have an idea that I think would be quite popular on Facebook (at least among my FB friends). I think I will go ahead and implement it anyway, but was wondering if FB apps really make money.

If there is anyone with experience writing (and, more importantly, successfully monetizing) FB apps, then I'd appreciate sharing their experience.

Thanks.

6 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 23.3 ms ] thread
noodle
do facebook apps make money? yes, some do. how? same way as normal web apps. some charge subscription fees. some use ads. some will be or are using credits to sell things. etc..
wmboy
...and some get acquired by EA Sports.
dmc
Zynga are an extreme 'yes' example.

I have experience with some FB apps, mainly just app versions of websites. These were not monetized(by me at least).

https://developers.facebook.com/ is your friend!

abuzzooz
Thanks. Zynga are the exception rather than the rule. I don't expect my app to go viral like Farmville (but I wouldn't mind if it did!).

I've already been all through FB's dev website, but wanted to get some feedback from real users.

Thanks again for the input.

portman
Yes.

The easiest way to monetize is with banner ads from one of the 40+ authorized Facebook ad networks. http://developers.facebook.com/adproviders/ Believe it or not, people DO click on banner ads, and you should see about a $0.10 eCPM for US and UK traffic. (Traffic outside of those two regions often have less than a penny eCPMs.)

The second-easiest way to monetize is to create a virtual currency that has value to your users, and sell that currency via Facebook Credits. http://developers.facebook.com/credits/

I've personally built about a dozen Facebook apps, and have been involved in close to 100. A general rule of thumb is to expect to make $100/month for every 10,000 monthly active users (MAUs). A modest success on Facebook can garner about 100K MAUs which should net you in the low thousands of $USD per month.

If you want to support yourself full-time, you'll need to aim for 1,000,000 MAUs.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

abuzzooz
Helps greatly. Thanks for the info.