All the People with Applications in the App Store. Since you posted your application so far. How is Sales? Is it up to your exceptions.
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iOS All the People with Applications in the App Store
- Thread starter forcesteeler
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Good question, not really sure what my expectations were. They certainly weren't an expectation to make a barrel-full of sales, loads of money and retire to the Bahamas 
I wonder if many developers have thought it was a case of (1) develop, (2) release, (3) make loads of money. You could have been forgiven that just getting an app in the store would = profit from all the buzz that's been going around. But reality is rarely so rosy.
I'm happy with how it's gone personally. It's early days for me (it's only been in the store since Saturday) and getting publicity is a long, hard graft, but it's starting to pay dividends.
My only regret, and there was nothing I could about it because of Apple's policies of only allowing US developers to apply for a long time and then sitting on thousands of developer sign-ups until the day of the 3G release, was that I couldn't have an app in at the launch of the app store. But there would have been a temptation to rush it and I think I've ended up with a much more polished app now.
I wonder if many developers have thought it was a case of (1) develop, (2) release, (3) make loads of money. You could have been forgiven that just getting an app in the store would = profit from all the buzz that's been going around. But reality is rarely so rosy.
I'm happy with how it's gone personally. It's early days for me (it's only been in the store since Saturday) and getting publicity is a long, hard graft, but it's starting to pay dividends.
My only regret, and there was nothing I could about it because of Apple's policies of only allowing US developers to apply for a long time and then sitting on thousands of developer sign-ups until the day of the 3G release, was that I couldn't have an app in at the launch of the app store. But there would have been a temptation to rush it and I think I've ended up with a much more polished app now.
One of my apps has been in the store for over a week now, the other slightly less. Sales are steady and at what I consider a decent level. It won't make a fortune but enough for a few nice dinners out
The thing that interests me is whether sales will plateau at a certain level or drop to zero. There are new iPhone users coming in every day but the store must be overwhelming and it's very hard to get visibility. External marketing helps but is time consuming and potentially costly.
The thing that interests me is whether sales will plateau at a certain level or drop to zero. There are new iPhone users coming in every day but the store must be overwhelming and it's very hard to get visibility. External marketing helps but is time consuming and potentially costly.
I'm in the store for about 6 weeks now and all in all it's been better than I thought but not even close to what I dreamed of ;o)
Well...yeah...you might have hoped to be rich after the first app in the store with that amount of buzz before the start. But it's certainly not going to happen unless you hit the #1-Spot with a 10-Dollar-App for more than a month or so.
Anyway, up until now it's been the best job I've ever been paid for if you calculate it on a $/h-basis! And the best thing at all about this is that it's making money round the clock.
Well...yeah...you might have hoped to be rich after the first app in the store with that amount of buzz before the start. But it's certainly not going to happen unless you hit the #1-Spot with a 10-Dollar-App for more than a month or so.
Anyway, up until now it's been the best job I've ever been paid for if you calculate it on a $/h-basis! And the best thing at all about this is that it's making money round the clock.
I am of course happy with every dollar that I make, but after hearing the initial reports of people making thousands of dollars a day, I might have set my expectations a little too high.
There isn't much "marketing" in the App Store that can be done except making sure you get lots of good feedback and fix bugs. I don't know how one get's placed on the landing page of the App Store, and my apps haven't made it into the top 100.
One thing that has helped sales is marketing outside of the App Store and getting the word out on all of the Apple sites, because the App Store is getting crowded and you can't rely on the search to get you sales.
There isn't much "marketing" in the App Store that can be done except making sure you get lots of good feedback and fix bugs. I don't know how one get's placed on the landing page of the App Store, and my apps haven't made it into the top 100.
One thing that has helped sales is marketing outside of the App Store and getting the word out on all of the Apple sites, because the App Store is getting crowded and you can't rely on the search to get you sales.
My first (MasterBrain) was just added to the store yesterday, but unfortunately no reports yet. Don't expect anything more than a couple of sales tho, but very curious. Please hurry Apple
My App, Time Task Calc, just hit the store on 9/18 near midnight. As of end-of-day Saturday, I have made about $20, and my app is $0.99.
It is neat to see what countries buy your app as well. Half of the buyers for my App are from outside the U.S. so far.
I was going to post a bunch of other details as far as the minimum sales required to receive a check, but I haven't read thoroughly to see if I am under any strict confidentiality requirement. I figure the above information is kosher to share since the Trism developer shared his figures.
Brendan
It is neat to see what countries buy your app as well. Half of the buyers for my App are from outside the U.S. so far.
I was going to post a bunch of other details as far as the minimum sales required to receive a check, but I haven't read thoroughly to see if I am under any strict confidentiality requirement. I figure the above information is kosher to share since the Trism developer shared his figures.
Brendan
You at least make the $99 back, right? How long does it take?
Do you make enough back to cover the cost of the iDevice? (I'm getting the new 32 GB iPod Touch to do my final tests on this week before releasing... of course I'd probably buy one sooner or later anyways just because of the... awesomeness.)
Do you make enough back to cover the cost of the iDevice? (I'm getting the new 32 GB iPod Touch to do my final tests on this week before releasing... of course I'd probably buy one sooner or later anyways just because of the... awesomeness.)
I'm a bit disappointed in sales so far, but that's mostly because of how Apple has been in getting my game listed.
My game, Rogue Vertex, has been on the store since 9/14.
First, it was ONLY searchable and therefore hidden from everyone unless you know me personally and I told you how to get it.
Then, several days later... it was ONLY categorized under Games/Action... and not Games/All.
By the time it finally appeared under Games/All, it was buried a few pages in. I'm not sure why it took so long for my app to appear there while many newer apps got listed just fine...
So, long story short... Rogue Vertex came into the app store buried, and in my opinion never had a chance at selling well due to a lack of visibility. Does that hurt my motivation to update the app and release new ones? Definitely. Will it stop me? Not really... it was a lot of fun making the game, and it looks good on a resume.
The sad truth is that these stories of people making thousands every day are not so common and it's really rough competing on the App Store versus the likes of EA and other companies who instantly get large featured graphics on the front page.
My game, Rogue Vertex, has been on the store since 9/14.
First, it was ONLY searchable and therefore hidden from everyone unless you know me personally and I told you how to get it.
Then, several days later... it was ONLY categorized under Games/Action... and not Games/All.
By the time it finally appeared under Games/All, it was buried a few pages in. I'm not sure why it took so long for my app to appear there while many newer apps got listed just fine...
So, long story short... Rogue Vertex came into the app store buried, and in my opinion never had a chance at selling well due to a lack of visibility. Does that hurt my motivation to update the app and release new ones? Definitely. Will it stop me? Not really... it was a lot of fun making the game, and it looks good on a resume.
The sad truth is that these stories of people making thousands every day are not so common and it's really rough competing on the App Store versus the likes of EA and other companies who instantly get large featured graphics on the front page.
Sadly, you are correct. To make good money (whatever amount that means to you) on the App Store as an independent developer, you either need a really good app, a bit of luck (i.e. featured by Apple), or both. You could be the best app in the world, and make almost nothing. You could be a screenshot with a sound, and make a fortune for a little while. You could be a fairly good app, get featured, and make a lot of money, for a good amount of time. But, in my opinion, the most important thing is getting noticed. If you've got a good app, and you get noticed, things will start moving by themselves.
Last I checked, you need to make $250. Otherwise it just gets carried over to the next paycycle...though after a couple months, I think it automatically goes through. But yeah, $250 to get it on the paycycle.
That's $250 in each region before you get paid for that region. The region are
United States
Australia
Canada
Europe
United Kingdom
Japan
Rest of World
So if you make $500 in the US then you'll get paid that $500. If you make $245 in the UK then it rolls over to the next pay cycle. There are some regions, Japan in particular, that I don't see myself ever hitting the minimum threshold.
Our app, iBinaryClock is doing better than we expected. We thought it would hardly sell due to it being aimed at such a small audience of people (Geeks) but we are getting anywhere between 7-27 sales a day. Not amazing but its paid off its development time and has certainly inspired us to keep going with bigger and better things
do you guys mind posting a per hr number (based on your estimated development time) and a bit more info? I know people are sensitive with revealing total sales number, but /hr should be ok? Ok I'll start:
App type: productivity
Total sales period: 3 weeks so far
per hr return: $10/hour, not that great.
App type: productivity
Total sales period: 3 weeks so far
per hr return: $10/hour, not that great.
Sure, I'll post my per hr to give people a laugh
App type: Game
Total sales period: 10 days
per hr return: $0.80 approx
...yes, you did read that right
App type: Game
Total sales period: 10 days
per hr return: $0.80 approx
...yes, you did read that right
Im not bothered about releasing any figures to be honest I dont see it as sensitive. Thing is I can't remember how long it took!! Next app we make I will keep closer tabs on everything
@ moopf - It wont be long til Hiqup starts making decent money, its bloody brilliant!
@ moopf - It wont be long til Hiqup starts making decent money, its bloody brilliant!
Heh, thanks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not down about it - I would have written it even if I'd never had a chance to make any money from it. It's been going round in my head for a long time, so I needed to get it out at some point. The iPhone seemed like a good challenge, something new for me to learn.
Anyway, next game is in planning, so I'm far from giving up
Escape Pod took me ~40 hours to write.
It's been on sale for exactly two weeks and has generated 602 sales at $1.99. Minus Apple's cut that's $842.8. So about $21.07 per hour (before tax). Not brilliant but not bad for something I enjoyed doing. Hopefully sales will hold steady...
My other application, Alphonetic, took about 20 hours to write, was released 10 days ago and has sold 97 copies at $0.99. So minus Apple's cut that's only $67.9 or, uh, $3.40 an hour. Not so good but again that's after only 10 days of sale.
Visibility in the store makes a huge difference, I wish I knew who I had to kiss to get on the 'New' or 'What's Hot' sections.
It's been on sale for exactly two weeks and has generated 602 sales at $1.99. Minus Apple's cut that's $842.8. So about $21.07 per hour (before tax). Not brilliant but not bad for something I enjoyed doing. Hopefully sales will hold steady...
My other application, Alphonetic, took about 20 hours to write, was released 10 days ago and has sold 97 copies at $0.99. So minus Apple's cut that's only $67.9 or, uh, $3.40 an hour. Not so good but again that's after only 10 days of sale.
Visibility in the store makes a huge difference, I wish I knew who I had to kiss to get on the 'New' or 'What's Hot' sections.
I can't remember to be honest, 2 of us wrote it and probably took 10 hours in total.
We have made around $300 so far so about $30/hour.
The update we are doing at the moment has taken significantly longer, so that nice looking hourly salary is about to take a dive when our new version is released!
Rogue Vertex has 92 sales as of now... it took me 4 weeks to write it (using all of my free time after work and on weekends), so that's like 200 hours keeping in mind that I came into this not knowing objective-c, xcode, or even Mac OS too well
It was all on a whim almost... decided to buy a Mac Mini and make an iPhone game. A friend of mine did the art and helped on game design and we wondered if we could do it in 4 weeks. It was a nice little challenge for ourselves.
So... $0.64 an hour so far.
The thing that really frustrates me is the fact that each territory counts separately... so my 1 sale in France? I'll never get that money. Apple keeps it all. It doesn't even count
It was all on a whim almost... decided to buy a Mac Mini and make an iPhone game. A friend of mine did the art and helped on game design and we wondered if we could do it in 4 weeks. It was a nice little challenge for ourselves.
So... $0.64 an hour so far.
The thing that really frustrates me is the fact that each territory counts separately... so my 1 sale in France? I'll never get that money. Apple keeps it all. It doesn't even count
I currently have two apps in the store. (With another 5 in review set to be releasing today/tomorrowish)
App Type: Games -> Dice/Board
Time to write: ~40 hours (including learning Xcode, Objective-C, and Cocoa Touch. Also includes time put into 3 updates.)
Hourly wage: $7.50
App Type: Entertainment
Time to write: ~24 hours (also includes time put into 4 updates.)
Hourly wage: $53.93
Both apps have been in the store for about a month.
App Type: Games -> Dice/Board
Time to write: ~40 hours (including learning Xcode, Objective-C, and Cocoa Touch. Also includes time put into 3 updates.)
Hourly wage: $7.50
App Type: Entertainment
Time to write: ~24 hours (also includes time put into 4 updates.)
Hourly wage: $53.93
Both apps have been in the store for about a month.
My app called "FIS Calc" has been in the app store since Aug. 22 and has sold about 250 at $10 each.
It is a calculator that adds, subtracts, multiplys and divides feet, inches and sixteenths in a very few keystrokes.
This is of course only by stumbling across it while browsing. It is listed in the Productivity category.
It has ranged from 1 a day to 10 in a day during that time.
It has never appeared in the "What's New" list and I can't seem to figure out how to get it there.
I was under the assumption that all new apps would appear there at least once in their life and then move on but not only has mine not appeared there but some have been there for more than a week.
I think Apple needs to clean up the review process as some of my reviews are written by people who have not even purchased or used my app.
I have not had any luck getting any of the website I have submitted my app to for review to feature it or even comment on it.
I believe that as more iphone and ipod touch users install the firmware that allows the purchase and download of apps to their devices that we will see an increase in sales. I read somewhere that only about 20% of first generation iphone owners have upgraded to 2.0, and I'm sure that there are high numbers of ipod touch owners that haven't upgraded as well.
I am still very excited about the app store and my returns and I am presently developing a "pro" version of my calculator as well as some other
speciality apps.
Hopefully things will get better as Apple gets over the growing pains it is going thru with the introduction of the app store.
I believe more marketing, advertising, and or visibility of my app would make sales increase.
It is a calculator that adds, subtracts, multiplys and divides feet, inches and sixteenths in a very few keystrokes.
This is of course only by stumbling across it while browsing. It is listed in the Productivity category.
It has ranged from 1 a day to 10 in a day during that time.
It has never appeared in the "What's New" list and I can't seem to figure out how to get it there.
I was under the assumption that all new apps would appear there at least once in their life and then move on but not only has mine not appeared there but some have been there for more than a week.
I think Apple needs to clean up the review process as some of my reviews are written by people who have not even purchased or used my app.
I have not had any luck getting any of the website I have submitted my app to for review to feature it or even comment on it.
I believe that as more iphone and ipod touch users install the firmware that allows the purchase and download of apps to their devices that we will see an increase in sales. I read somewhere that only about 20% of first generation iphone owners have upgraded to 2.0, and I'm sure that there are high numbers of ipod touch owners that haven't upgraded as well.
I am still very excited about the app store and my returns and I am presently developing a "pro" version of my calculator as well as some other
speciality apps.
Hopefully things will get better as Apple gets over the growing pains it is going thru with the introduction of the app store.
I believe more marketing, advertising, and or visibility of my app would make sales increase.