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Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

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Re: Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

#21

Post by byoung2 »

grasshoper wrote: post #6
byoung2 wrote: post #2

I've never published an iPhone app personally, but at my last job we hired TakeFiveLabs to make an app for us (Veritas Prep GMAT app), and though it was completely free, it brought in $10,000+ in signups for our $1500+ course and tutoring

How much did you pay to have this app created? Also, by $10K in signups, does that mean seven or so signups for a $1.5K course?

I meant to say $10K in signups per month

They charged us in the neighborhood of $10,000 to program the app and submit it to the store.

That is to say people who checked "iPhone app" in the "how did you hear about us" section during signup. It was about 6-7 signups per month, and I believe it's still bringing in signups (I no longer work there).

Re: Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

#22

Post by ryanwaggoner »

drewcrawford wrote: post #16

A) I currently own three apps. B) All are paid. C) Zero. D) Almost $5000 between all three. When you consider it took me maybe two weeks worth of work, it's decent pay. If you factor a percentage of the pay from all of the contract leads those apps have generated, we're talking about serious money.

How long have they been available? Are they iPhone only? What are the prices? Can you tell us the category? :)

Really appreciate the sharing!

Re: Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

#23

Post by tlrobinson »

I spent maybe 5 hours programming Silver Revolver (originally Russian Roulette) http://silverrevolver.com/ and it has made probably $30,000 over the last year, most of which was during a two week period when it was on the top 100 charts. I'd say I got pretty lucky.

Re: Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

#24

Post by fairlyodd »

tlrobinson wrote: post #23

I spent maybe 5 hours programming Silver Revolver (originally Russian Roulette) http://silverrevolver.com/ and it has made probably $30,000 over the last year, most of which was during a two week period when it was on the top 100 charts. I'd say I got pretty lucky.

No offense, but that app really blows. Really good on you if you were able to milk 30k out of it :)

Re: Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

#25

Post by drewcrawford »

I'm wondering if this would work better as a Google Apps survey. In particular, there's a big difference between an app that takes one guy an afternoon to write and an app with man-years of development time. To get some insight on that, I've thrown together something here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dF...

Please look at it and make suggestions about what I am missing. I will of course publish all the data.

Re: Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

#26

Post by tlrobinson »

fairlyodd wrote: post #24
tlrobinson wrote: post #23

I spent maybe 5 hours programming Silver Revolver (originally Russian Roulette) http://silverrevolver.com/ and it has made probably $30,000 over the last year, most of which was during a two week period when it was on the top 100 charts. I'd say I got pretty lucky.

No offense, but that app really blows. Really good on you if you were able to milk 30k out of it :)

What's wrong with it? (not that I care, I haven't touched it in year)

Re: Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

#27

Post by conorgil145 »

tlrobinson wrote: post #26
fairlyodd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense, but that app really blows. Really good on you if you were able to milk 30k out of it :)

What's wrong with it? (not that I care, I haven't touched it in year)

Why would you not care? If someone thought that an app that I wrote sucked, then I would definitely want to know why. I would strive to write only quality apps and I could use the feedback to make my next app NOT suck.

Re: Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

#29

Post by tlrobinson »

conorgil145 wrote: post #27
tlrobinson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with it? (not that I care, I haven't touched it in year)

Why would you not care? If someone thought that an app that I wrote sucked, then I would definitely want to know why. I would strive to write only quality apps and I could use the feedback to make my next app NOT suck.

Well yea, that's why I asked, but I'm not going to bother fixing it at this point.

Re: Ask HN: Number of iPhone apps you published & income you get from them

#30

Post by dhess »

jcollins wrote: post #15

This could be interesting if enough folks post. Here is my info. I've published 2 apps, one paid (Whiteboard Capture Pro), one free (Picture Me). Picture Me code is open sourced as well ( http://bit.ly/7rmKdT ). Originally I did some marketing with Google Adsense but it's too hard to track its success so I stopped. I've had some free marketing thanks to mentions in blogs, etc. Recently Apple even made a super awesome…

Has anyone republished your free app as a paid app? If so, how do you feel about it?
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