Skip to main content

iOS developers share their earnings, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way

apps

If you write iOS apps and wonder how your earnings compare against those of other developers – or you have an idea for an app, and are wondering whether it’s worth pursuing – it can be tough to find any hard information. We hear occasional stories about hugely successful apps like Flappy Bird making hundreds of thousands of dollars per day, and we know there are some apps with literally zero downloads to their name, but what about the middle ground?

Jared Sinclair, developer of the RSS reader Unread, decided last year to share both his earnings from the app, and the lessons he’d learned along the way. It’s taken six months, but several other developers started the new year by following his example, with numbers and lessons shared for podcast player Overcast, graphical game Monument Valley and developer aid Dash … 

It’s worth noting, of course, that developers who choose to share their earnings in this way are, by definition, successful ones. Nobody is going to share embarrassing numbers, nor think they have anything to offer in the way of useful guidance to other developers unless they have themselves been successful. So the numbers shared will not be typical, but the lessons learned may well be helpful to anyone looking to emulate their success.

Let’s start with Unread, as it was Sinclair who kicked off this budding trend – and while he achieved a worthwhile income from the app, there are no telephone-number style earnings here. Sales hit $10k in the first 24 hours, but six months later they had only totalled just over three times that, at $32k (plus a further $10k for the iPad version).

Which brings us to one of the key lessons, mirrored in the data shared by other developers: for many apps, the sales they achieve when launched will be the highest sales the app will ever achieve. Or, to put it more graphically, here are the sales for the first six months:

ufy-iphone-regular-graph

Which leads to one obvious conclusion: if you were thinking about a discounted price to help get your app out there, think again!

Don’t launch your paid-up-front app at a reduced price. Demand for your app will likely never be higher again. Price it accordingly.

Sinclair’s view is that if you want to make serious money from an app, you have to launch at full price, and it has to be a smash when launched–because it’s pretty much all downhill from there. That may not be true of all apps, of course, but is supported by monthly sales data from Overcast:

overcast-monthly-sales

And it holds true for one of the biggest iOS games, Monument Valley, whose total revenue is now approaching $6M. Developer Ustwogames helpfully labelled all the spikes in their sales, so you can see what events generated sales:

monument

So other factors played their part, but launch sales dwarfed everything else – even having Apple pick it as iPad Game of the Year!

Note in particular that winning an Apple Design Award–which you might think would be a huge deal – resulted in only a modest uptick for a short time. A subsequent sale price, halving the price from $4 to $2, had a bigger impact. You can also see that, in this case, halving the price during a sale was very worthwhile, roughly quadrupling sales briefly.

You might also imagine that having your app featured by Apple in the App Store would be the holy grail. Not so, says Sinclair, who concluded that blog coverage is more important.

Coverage from influential bloggers can drive more sales than an App Store feature.

Anyone thinking that writing an app is an easy path to riches can also think again. Dash developer Kapeli–whose app grossed just under $275k last year–kept very detailed data on his working hours. While there are peaks and troughs, you can see that you’ll need to be prepared to put in the hours while developing the app.

hours

Expenses, too, can be significant for a high-grossing app. Ustwogames reports that they had eight core team members working on the app, with the original version requiring 55 weeks of development. The Forgotten Shores follow-up app took a further 29 weeks. Between the two, development costs totalled a cool $1.4M.

costs

Even at a far more modest level, doing everything yourself, don’t imagine the only costs are your own time. The Dash website notches up hosting bills of $2400 a year.

What if you’re one of those people who has an idea for an app but doesn’t have the coding skills to create it yourself? That was the position in which Bryan Conklin found himself in for the forthcoming game SiK Robot. If you think you can throw a couple of thousand bucks at a developer and get a working app back, he has bad news: he had quotes of up to $50k, and has so far–close to launch–spent $12k. Costs were split between design and development phases.

design-development

He says he learned two key lessons. First, think it all through in detail before you even approach a developer. Create a requirements list, detailing the exact functionality the app will have. If it’s a game, supplement this with a Game Design Document which describes the story, the characters, the levels, the user-interface and so on–there are templates available online for this (example).

Create a wireframe view–a series of images showing the flow of the app–so that you have a comprehensive plan from which the developer will work. This stage will, says Conklin, also help you to spot inconsistencies at an early stage.

Finally, the most important advice he offers to contain costs, is to apply the delete key to the requirements list. Whittle it away, he says, until you end up with a Minimum Viable Product: one that has enough functionality to be appealing to users, but without throwing in the kitchen sink in version one. If the app proves popular, the features you deleted can be added in to later versions.

If you’re an app developer, what lessons have you learned along the way, and what advice would you offer to those just starting out? Do share your thoughts in the comments.

Image: whatsoniphone.com

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. Dennis Becker - 9 years ago

    What I’m missing here is the marketing costs for the apps. I’m pretty sure that Monument Valley didn’t just go off the charts without a big marketing budget? And therefore, after launch sales are probably more important than launch day sales?

    • Ben Lovejoy - 9 years ago

      I’m sure a sizeable chunk of that $1.4M number was marketing costs

      • Justin Bolles - 9 years ago

        I doubt it. 8 developers for a year (55 weeks) would cost you every bit of $800K after taxes, healthcare, office space, etc.

      • Ben Lovejoy - 9 years ago

        I suspect you don’t reach those kind of revenues without spending a chunk of cash on marketing.

      • degraevesofie - 9 years ago

        8 developers for a year (55 weeks) would cost you every bit of $800K after taxes, healthcare, office space, etc.

        That’s certainly true in the US (in fact, I’d think it be quite a bit more). OTOH, they may be hiring developers abroad at a fraction of the cost.

    • Sometimes you don’t need any marketing costs and get lucky, like me ;)
      Just build a good product and never stop bringing up new updates. I’m working like that on my app Fitness Point for almost 3 years and could increase my revenue this way.

      • PMZanetti - 9 years ago

        Updates are all that matters in the App world. As my post below says, be the first to support the new device and the new APIs, and you will a huge boost every year. That chart the dev posted with the huge spike at launch….that “launch” can be recreated every year with strategic updates.

  2. YU No - 9 years ago

    I just wanted to take a seat. This topic interests me.

  3. PMZanetti - 9 years ago

    Your best chance at discovery these days is creating an App that is easily updated every year. Regardless of what your App does or what niche it fills….if you want your App to survive more than 12 months….it needs to be conceived from the start as an “updatable” App.
    That means being able to quickly update your App when Apple releases a new device with a new screen size or resolution. Being able to implement whatever new API’s Apple releases that are the gateway to the most powerful core OS features.
    Like I said, regardless of what your App does, the simplest App in the world that is mere “shell meant for updates” will get more exposure and be more relevant year after year.
    A simple To Do app, the least interesting thing on the App Store, that sells for $0.99, could have made a killing in September had it been one of the first Apps to be iPhone 6-ready, and implemented a bunch of the leading iOS 8 features: iCloud Drive, iCloud Keychain, Extensions, Widgets, Healthkit (why not?), etc.

  4. In my experience blog coverage drives the most traffic—even more so than being visible high on the App Store charts. I launched Marco Polo last year and was lucky enough to have the app climb the charts quickly, but the position was never sustained until more blogs picked up coverage, then it would shoot up again.

    Fresh updates definitely seem to influence downloads. We’re about to launch version 2.0 this week and it will be interesting to see what a major release does to sales.

  5. saddington - 9 years ago

    I shared a few thoughts on a major event last year as an indie developer in the Mac App Store: http://blog.desk.pm/df/ <~~~ my sponsorship of John Gruber's Daring Fireball blog made last year profitable.

    • Ben Lovejoy - 9 years ago

      Thanks for sharing that

      • saddington - 9 years ago

        thanks ben! as i mentioned via twitter, i’ve had a great first year as an indie Mac Dev… I’m thinking about doing a retrospective to share my experiences, especially since many have been from the iOS world (which I’ve also experienced… and that was rough…!).

      • saddington - 9 years ago

        @Ben – I wrote it ~~> http://blog.desk.pm/2014-yir/

    • Jim Chapman - 8 years ago

      Saddington, as a Mac App developer, do you feel that Mac App Store revenues can be compared to the revenues of App Store? MI have heard that the are scanty compared to iPhone App Store. It is not surprising, given that only a quarter of iPhone users have Mac laptops, according to a study conducted by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners ( you can read about it here http://www.fastcompany.com/3023591/angela-ahrendts-a-new-season-at-apple)
      iOS development seems much more promising.
      Over the past decades smartphones has conquered the world. Nobody puts so much effort into developing laptop applications now as they put into mobile apps.For example, take a look into this matter from the point of view of a software development company – https://magora-systems.com/apple-app-developer-london. The majority of their services have to do with iOS development.
      First of all, it is very convenient and handy, an iPhone is always at your hand. Secondly, mobile apps have become essential tools for various businesses, as web presence is no more sufficient. Even Apple themselves do not pay much attention to their Mac App Store, which is indicated by occasional issues with some of its applications – http://www.macworld.com/article/3007290/os-x/the-mac-app-store-not-gone-but-certainly-forgotten.html
      In my opinion, it is most probable that App Store will see even larger growth rates, while Mac App Store will gradually decline.
      These are just some of my though. It will be great if you’ll share yours.

Author

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


Ben Lovejoy's favorite gear