How Much Can You Make On an App?

The mobile app market is expected to be over $50 billion by 2015 as a continuation of the exponential growth that the market has seen in the last few years, according to The Wall Street Journal.

It is no wonder that many young coders and developers that look at this large and growing industry think that the cyber roads and Wi-Fi ports are paved with gold, and decide to jump in. Until fairly recently, there wasn’t a lot of research into how much an app is expected to make, or the costs in labor and start-up capital required to launch an app. With a new survey published in 9to5 Mac, developers can get some idea as to how profitable apps are, how they become successful, and what lessons there are to learn.

Looking at successful apps like Unread and Monument Valley, two of the apps mentioned by 9to5 Mac, the bulk of the revenue comes from initial release, which is where demand for apps is at their highest. Therefore, according to the article, it is important to appropriately price an app to take advantage of the high demand, and then trim it down once the demand decreases and it needs to be supplemented with expansions and well-timed sales.

Unread made over $10,000 in its first day on the market, but six months later could only muster $42,000 in additional revenue, which is about average for an app to make per year. Monument Valley, a game designed by Ustwogames, has made $6 million in revenue so far, with its best days coming on phone releases and sales. The game generated a lot of revenue as well through blogs advertising the game, which highlights the power of word of mouth in the app community. The peaks though were never as large as they were initially, so having a $4 price tag that could be reduced down to $2 with time, as well as being a popular game, proved to be a successful strategy for Monument Valley.