Depends on how much time/resources/money is spent each month. Cost to benefit ratio.
I myself not having a profitable app on the store would see it as a success.
Is a web app earning $100/month a failure?
31–39 of 39 posts
Re: Is a web app earning $100/month a failure?
#32If you put more than an hour a month into it, then yeah, it probably is. Your time could probably be better spend elsewhere. Of course, that assumes the main goal of the app was to earn money. The knowledge gained from creating it could very well be worth it.
An hour seems too low. I'd say more like 4 hours at least, more if you are taking time that would normally be wasted anyway. Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your comment.
Yeah, opportunity cost is really hard to measure.
But I think if someone is industrious enough to support that project for an hour a month, they are industrious enough to use that hour some other profitable way, though. It's unlikely they would just sit on their thumbs and wish they had something to do.
Re: Is a web app earning $100/month a failure?
#33Yes and No. You have the wrong approach. You can't predict success and you can't predict what markets will work and you can't prredict what the perfect product for a market is. You have to release products and track ALL possible metrics and tweak consistently. Basically, even the really big companies have hits and misses. And more misses than hits. So, firstly, you should be releasing 5 or 10 high quality web apps an…
So play around with the price a bit Previously, I have charged $4.99/year, $19.99/year, $1/month, $4.99/month, and $19.99/one-time is the latest price. You're right that the sample is too small to make much of... on the other hand, it is double what the tool usually makes per month. I'm happy to experiment, my main question is: am I missing out on the bigger picture by charging for this app instead of using it to pro…
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Re: Is a web app earning $100/month a failure?
#34If you wrote it in 1-2 days, not really (or you learned something on the way). Otherwise: yes.
Re: Is a web app earning $100/month a failure?
#35Yes and No. You have the wrong approach. You can't predict success and you can't predict what markets will work and you can't prredict what the perfect product for a market is. You have to release products and track ALL possible metrics and tweak consistently. Basically, even the really big companies have hits and misses. And more misses than hits. So, firstly, you should be releasing 5 or 10 high quality web apps an…
So play around with the price a bit Previously, I have charged $4.99/year, $19.99/year, $1/month, $4.99/month, and $19.99/one-time is the latest price. You're right that the sample is too small to make much of... on the other hand, it is double what the tool usually makes per month. I'm happy to experiment, my main question is: am I missing out on the bigger picture by charging for this app instead of using it to pro…
It's not a good idea to turn a product into a free product to support another one unless that other product is something like Google's Search Engine.
Even then, you could argue it's better to build multiple streams of income and not depend on one product.
An offer of Buy 1 product and get the other free - that's fine. But giving away inbox cleaner doesn't make sense unless you get a really high conversion rate for Tweeting Machine.
You have also asked a completely different question in your blog post. To sell more tweeing machine subscriptions - perhaps a longer trial (1 or 2 months instead of 10 days) or a lite version would make sense.
Re: Is a web app earning $100/month a failure?
#36yes, it is a failure.
Re: Is a web app earning $100/month a failure?
#37If you put more than an hour a month into it, then yeah, it probably is. Your time could probably be better spend elsewhere. Of course, that assumes the main goal of the app was to earn money. The knowledge gained from creating it could very well be worth it.
If you put more than an hour a month into it Thankfully, the support costs are, err, maybe an email every few months? Basically, extremely low. Combined with sharing the hosting with TweetingMachine, it is essentially all profit at this point :)
it is essentially all profit at this point
Now it's time to build another $100/mo success until you get enough of them to buy that private island you're always wanted...
Re: Is a web app earning $100/month a failure?
#38Put the $100 into a savings account and use it for a rainy day. I see no reason to stop running something that makes money.