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Ask HN: What's the relationship between App Store Top Grossing Rank and Revenue?

59 points by webwright ↗ HN
Apple publishes a top-grossing list ( http://www.appannie.com/top/united-states/ has pretty good data), and there is a some anecdotal data out there ( http://taptaptap.com/blog/cameraplus-hits-2-million-sales/ ), but there's very little transparency about what things are like outside of the top 10 grossing apps. If you provide some data in the comments of this thread (or email them to me -- webwright @ gmail if you'd prefer to keep it out of the public eye), I'll send you spreadsheet of the data I've come up with (I've got about 10 data points so far-- would love to get more-- especially in the lower ranks to see how long the "tail" is).

17 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 47.6 ms ] thread
sahillavingia
A top 30 application in Paid Utilities nets around $500/day in my experience. It doesn't even show up in the Top 200 Paid All.

[edit] - the app is $1.99.

webwright
Pulling a random top 30 utilities app ( http://www.appannie.com/icon-skins-builder-create/ranking/hi... ) seems to indicate that that corrosponds to #460 or so on the global list. Interesting stuff!
phil
Do you know how they're able to create a top 500 list? I thought the app store rankings only went to 200.
bignoggins
Disclaimers:

1. All these data points are for the US APP STORE. When you see big numbers from taptaptap, etc, they are referring to worldwide numbers, which do not really help with rankings since rankings are different in each market. That said, USA is by far the biggest market, so most developers brag about US Store rankings.

2. Rankings vary quite a bit depending on the season. For example, Christmas day sales are generally 3x normal, and it stays at about 1.5-2x for a few weeks afterwards. When new devices hit the market, there is also a surge in sales.

Data points from my own apps:

Overall:

#66 Top Paid Overall iPhone = ~ 1200 sales/day

#60 Top Grossing Overall iPhone: ~$2500/day

Sports Top Paid iPhone(Varies a TON depending on what sports season it is):

#25 = ~ 50 sales/day

#10 = ~ 100 sales / day

#5 = ~ 250 sales / day

#2 = ~ 500 sales / day

Sports Top Paid iPad:

#5 = ~ 150 sales / day

Data points from other developers apps who have shared their data with me:

#7 Overall Paid iPhone = ~ 16,000 sales / day

#10 Overall Paid iPhone = ~ 7,000 sales / day

#1 Overall Free iPad = ~ 40,000 downloads / day

#15 Overall Paid iPad = ~ 1,000 sales / day

webwright
That is amazing data-- thanks. Are those at the .99 cent price point? Or higher?

(grats on the success, by the way)

bignoggins
My lowest priced paid app is 2.99, but it doesn't affect the figures in any way. Overall paid counts individual sales only. Top grossing factors in the price.
webwright
Gotcha-- I saw "1200 sales/day" and assumed it meant you sold 1200 units. Is that $1200?
bignoggins
You're right it is 1200 sold units @ 2.99 * 70% = ~ $2500. That's why I split up paid and grossing.
hboon
Also useful to note is number of ratings/reviews also affect ranking in the top charts.
bignoggins
No it doesn't. Ranking is completely based off of # of units downloaded.
busterbenson
Totally random data point that is way out of date now. On March 17th, 2009, it took about 1,750 sales per day (at $2.99 price point = $5,232 that one day) to reach #64 in the paid store. This post shows a bit more about the trajectory and the above information can help you understand where the peak was.

http://enjoymentland.com/2009/04/21/locavores-first-month-in...

Hope that helps!

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
whyleym
My data points for a UK centric app in the sports section of the app store (iPhone & iPad combined) :

#25 = ~ 20 sales/day

#15 = ~ 30 sales/day

#5 = ~ 50 sales/day

#3 = ~ 75 sales/day

So wildly different to US in terms of numbers - which is probably in itself unsurprising but great to see some actual numbers.

One thing I have noticed is that sales in general in the UK have gone up quite dramatically since Christmas - before Christmas we were in the top 10 of the Sports section of the UK app store and seeing around 20 - 25 sales a day - now you would be likely to see around 40 sales a day.