
Ask HN: Anyone Making Money on Windows Phone 8 Apps? - clarky07
I'm getting annoyed with the changes in the iOS App Store so I just finished porting several apps to Android and now I'm working on Windows 8. Just wondering if anyone has any experience good or bad with the new Windows platform.
======
toolboc
I have a couple of applications exclusively marketed for WP7 and Windows 8.
The biggest benefit I have seen is that the lack of apps in both markets makes
a it prime ground for building a brand. It is still sparse enough to where you
don't even need an original idea, just fill in an obvious gap. At the same
time it is a gamble whether or not it will pick up, but I think both platforms
have much promise. It is also good to note that Pubcenter (Microsoft's ad
platform) beats most everything else out there, as in >.60 eCPM averages. A
buddy of mine did a Pandora client for WP7 is reporting ad revenue of > $100 a
day. I'm personally hitting somewhere around $30 a day. It's definitely harder
to hit numbers like that in competing marketplaces. I imagine that if they
pick up my buddy and I will be in a nice position which is what developing for
an upcoming platform is really all about.

~~~
clarky07
What's the name of that pandora client / link? That's one of 3 apps I was sad
wasn't on wp8 so far.

~~~
toolboc
MetroRadio

[http://www.windowsphone.com/en-
us/store/app/metroradio/0caac...](http://www.windowsphone.com/en-
us/store/app/metroradio/0caac4aa-962f-483b-9c26-76a3d8a1fd10)

~~~
clarky07
sweet thanks. now i'm down to 2 :-) (cnbc and glassboard fwiw)

~~~
toolboc
May I plug my app (Similar to Pandora but with music videos)
[http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/searchler-
music-...](http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/searchler-music-video-
search/aa7b0980-cfd7-4533-8b9c-6c54d542c5cf)

------
jedi3335
I have a few free Windows Phone 7 apps in the marketplace. Since Windows Phone
8 shipped I've seen my download rate increase ~50%, and it seems like around
30% of my active users are running WP8. I'm not making any money with these
(just fun projects for me), but its a datapoint FWIW

~~~
jtheory
Thanks -- can you mention any actual numbers (vs just the percentage
increase)?

------
jeremiep
The whole Windows ecosystem is a huge mess for developers right now.

Visual Studio 2012 often crashes, the API documentation is often incomplete
and not helpful, there are quite a number of incompatibilities between W8 and
WP8, XAML has mediocre performance on ARM and can't be accessed from C++ on
WP8, the list goes on and on.

If anything, Microsoft managed to make most Windows developers I know want to
work on linux/Android or OSX/iOS instead - the rest are blissfully unaware of
what UNIX is in the first place.

Sure these things may improve over time, but right now developers are nothing
more than beta testers. For us, the possible profits are not worth the efforts
to deal with the mediocre development experience.

~~~
meaty
Vs2012 crashes less than vs2010 though. Hand over your cash now for the new
feature!

We've bailed and moving to java on the server and web and android apps for
mobile.

~~~
jeremiep
I used to write Java on the server-side and hated it. It felt like mindlessly
writing boilerplate code for a living with a language assuming I'm an idiot
who can't be trusted with more than one paradigm at a time.

The last backend application I wrote was entirely written in CoffeeScript
running on node.js. While it doesn't get the performance of the JVM, the
development experience has been some of the most fun I've had in years.

For future backend projects, especially if they're big in scale, I'm looking
at either Haskell or the D programming language.

~~~
meaty
Java on the server is fine if you know how not to poke your eyes out with
context reloading and avoid jsp and jsf like the plague :)

I find coffeescript/node.js to be a bit too trendy to trust and Haskell to be
perl for computer scientists.

If I had my way, I'd write everything in RPL

~~~
zensavona
"a bit too trendy to trust"

I imagine java was trendy also when everything was written in C++

~~~
jeremiep
Back then, Sun had to spend a fortune to push Java down the throats of
developers. Mostly by selling it to their clueless managers instead.

Java was born out of a trend and still lives as one to this day, good thing
only the corporate world really bought into it!

~~~
meaty
The reason its so popular with corporates is that most of the expensive
problems are already solved so building software is sticking a few well proven
components together with some glue. It's also good at managing memory for you,
which is not something that can be said for most languages.

------
marklubi
The Windows Phone sales of our app have been extremely lackluster. Our app is
a paid app priced at $4.99 and targeted for Windows Phone 7.

On iOS we regularly get into the Top 10 iPhone and iPad Sports apps (both top
paid and top grossing), and on Android into the Top 20 Sports apps on Google
Play.

Our WP7 version has generated approximately 0.5% of what our iOS app has made,
or approximately 2% of our Android app.

We also have had a Mac version of our app available since July which has
almost passed the total sales of the WP version which has been on the market
for over a year (our app is primarily targeted at mobile device users while
they're at a sporting event, so lower computer sales are expected).

The jury is still out on how our Windows 8/RT app will sell in relation to the
others since it was released just prior to the launch of Win8 but after the
majority of our sport's season had completed for the year.

Our app does spread pretty virally at the events. In our completely
unscientific polling of users, most of them found out about the app from other
users, and I would guess that those WP users probably just assume that it's
not available to them (we do give it equal promotion with the rest of the
versions on our website).

As far as the release of WP8 goes, we haven't seen any noticeable uptick in
sales as a result.

~~~
codefoster
I wonder if your app goes well on tablets as well as phones and so Windows 8
will be big for you.

~~~
marklubi
We're certainly hoping that the Win8 version will go well and we made sure
that it would work well on tablets.

Both our iOS and Android versions have tablet optimized interfaces and we see
a significant amount of tablet use for both.

A somewhat interesting side note, our iPad top chart rankings lag behind
iPhone by a few hours. Presumably people get the app on their phone while at
the event and then go home and install it on their iPad as well.

------
rjsamson
I'm really interested to see if there's any traction here, or if its all smoke
and mirrors like with Windows Phone 7...

~~~
clarky07
Yeah same here. Numbers from Microsoft keep saying it's better, but only with
relative numbers. Sure app sales have doubled in a month, but if it's from
10-20 I'm not that excited.

That's why I started this thread though. See if any indies have something out
yet and are making actual money comparable to either iPhone or Android.

------
manojlds
As a dev, I don't access to a reasonably priced WP8 device being sold in my
country, and after getting the Lumia 800 a yaer back, if I have to get another
phone, the more pertinent question would be how much money I am spending to
develop these apps.

BTW, the emulator is horrible.

~~~
CodeCube
Really? my experience with the emulators (both for windows phone, and windows
8) have been fantastic. Can you elaborate what was horrible about them?

~~~
manojlds
Main reason - I am making a typing oriented app, and it so TOUGH to type on
the emulator as it doesnt take keyboard input. And I felt the options were
limited compared to the Android emulator.

~~~
relevate
Just press 'page up' and the Windows Phone emulator will let you type with
your keyboard. It does get annoying when you have to do this every time, but I
think the Windows Phone emulator beats Android's significantly in terms of
speed and stability.

~~~
myko
> speed and stability

Speed yes, but stability? I've never had the Android emulator crash, and
haven't heard of (m)any cases of it either.

Also, is the WP8 a simulator or an emulator?

------
sriramk
I make ~$200 from a browser app I wrote a couple of years ago.
[http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/17/windows-phone-7-will-
work...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/17/windows-phone-7-will-work-with-
third-party-browsers-so-long-as/)

~~~
jtheory
...per month? On x downloads per month? Thanks, it's helpful to get some
numbers.

~~~
sriramk
Per month. It's a $1.99 app.

------
gjulianm
My experience with WP development. I have a Twitter client (I know, it's not
an original app, it started just as a playground) since February, and I can
tell some things:

\- A lot of people answering questions (even if WP itself doesn't have a big
developer community, lots of questions are common to Silverlight, C# and .NET
platform ones so you have plenty of resources). The documentation is really
good, at least comparing with what I've seen on Android and iOS (Android was
far worse when I looked into it).

\- VS2012 is also pretty good. Of course, you don't get as deep as you would
with a plain C compiler, but that's another point. I've heard that it really
becomes great when you use all MS tools like TFS for version control and
collaboration. With git... well, there are plugins but I think it's better to
use the console. Same with unit tests. There is a library for unit testing on
Windows Phone and it's good enough, but I expected something more from MS.

\- The store is a 5/10. It's good enough, but it can improve a lot. Luckily,
they're very open to new ideas and are improving each month.

\- Making money: My app is free, made 3000 downloads last month. Not a bad
number taking into account that it's difficult to compete with well
established apps like Mehdoh, Rowi, Gleek and Peregrine and I don't get so
much exposure. But I'm pretty sure that this number could be far higher: on
average, I got ~50 downloads per day, but the app was highlighted three days
in the spanish Store, about 1200 downloads more.

So, with a bigger user base and more exposure in the store (localization helps
_a lot_ , for me it almost tripled downloads of the app) you can make money.
Of couse, if nobody downloads your app, you won't make any... But there's less
competing apps here, so it's easier to get to the top of the market. You won't
get as many benefits as if you were on Android / iOS, but probably there you
wouldn't be on the top.

------
freehunter
As a Windows Phone user, one thing I can comment on is that some Windows Phone
apps that I have seen in my personal experience are more expensive than
Android or iOS apps. I'm assuming this is because developing for WP has a
lower potential for return, but it really turns me off on the app. Some I've
been willing to purchase on my Android tablet, I have not purchased on my
Windows Phone because the price difference was 99c vs 2.99.

Price is something you have to take into account; price it too high and people
won't buy it, which in turn gives you a lower ROI. Then you have developers
complaining that their WP app didn't turn a profit and the market is dead when
in reality the price was just out of sync with other platforms. Consumer's
aren't blind, and regardless of the platform they don't care the reason why
your prices are high. All they care about is iOS gets it for 99c and they're
saddled with a price significantly higher than that.

~~~
clarky07
While I can understand what you are saying in theory, 1.99 or 2.99 is not in
fact significantly higher. it's a dollar. 1/4 a cup of coffee. I know we've
had these discussions before and it's not coffee blah blah blah. But come on,
"significantly higher." It's just not.

The thing is, apps are priced as they are because of risk. In general, apps
are worth either 0 or significantly higher than a dollar. If it turns out you
don't like it and you don't use it, then it's worth absolutely nothing. On the
other hand, if you like it and end up using it all the time, it's worth far
far more than $1.

If you already know you like an app because you've used it on another
platform, or tried a trial or demo version, spending 1.99 or 2.99 really
shouldn't be much of a hurdle.

Also, I suspect those devs started out at the same price point, and when they
sold 1-5% of what they do on iOS or Android they decided to raise the price.

~~~
freehunter
$3 vs $1 is a 300% price increase. No matter how small the actual amount is,
that's how it shows. We're paying a 300% markup. I mentioned that this is
likely due to risk, then went on to say that this risk mitigation sometimes
ends up causing more damage than it helps. Raising the price doesn't always
make more money, sometimes it just decreases sales.

I didn't set the standard price for apps. The market did. Is software worth
more than 99c? Sure. But that's the standard price for a standard app. $3 is
seen as a major hurdle. Some big-name publishers are putting out Pac Man and
Galaga etc at $7 on Windows Phone. The reviews section is full of "this is way
too expensive, I'm just playing the demo over again". I have paid $15 for an
app, but not many people will. If you want to sell, you need to price it at an
appetizing rate. $3 is fine if you can justify it to the market and it's a
fair price. Telling users "your platform is more expensive to develop for"
will get the developer nowhere.

It's basic economics. Valve even did an analysis that is posted occasionally
here on HN showing that their profits went up when they reduced prices. I've
heard some developers say that their ad revenue on free apps is more than
their sales revenue on paid apps, regardless of the platform. Whatever the
reason, if you think that dollar or two difference is insignificant, read the
reviews of some WP apps with a price differential between marketplaces.

------
codefoster
I know someone that quit his job because he was making enough money on
advertising alone on just Windows Phone 8 apps. He's got even more apps in the
store now, so I don't know how much he's making but I think he's doing very
well. Then there's Windows 8 which promises to be much bigger!

------
jheriko
... so has anyone actually made any money on Windows Phone 8?

------
mtgx
As far as I know you shouldn't even be making WP8 apps, because they are not
compatible with any WP7 device. So developers are stuck with building WP7 apps
that also work on WP8 devices, because most WP devices are WP7.

And I don't think a Windows 8 app can be the same as a WP8 app either. At the
very least you'll need a whole new UI and design, and most likely quite
different code, too. It's not as easy as Microsoft says: "write once, publish
to all our platforms with Windows in their name".

~~~
madoublet
As a Windows 8 developer, the most frustrating part of WP8 is the lack of
compatibility for native HTML5/WinJS apps. For me, this was the best thing
about Windows 8. It made building apps easy and fun. The most ridiculous thing
about the whole thing is that the HTML5/WinJS apps are completely responsive,
and you pretty much have to build a mobile version of your app to support
"snap" mode. So, they could easily have a write once, run anywhere model if
they just supported native HTML5 apps in WP8. Sorry, /rant.

~~~
GowGuy47
I did not know this about WP8, and I'm glad you said something. It's stuff
like this that will make devs steer clear of writing for them. If I can write
a PhoneGap app for Android/iPhone (Which I am), but I have to make major
changes to write for WP8 then I am not going to do so.

~~~
sblom
There's a Windows Phone 8 implementation of PhoneGap:
<https://github.com/apache/incubator-cordova-wp8>

------
rewriteme
My boss makes $1k/mo from an alarm click app.

------
mutru
The local university here in Finland has in interesting partnership with
Microsoft. They offer you some money if you develop your app exclusively for
Windows Phone for the first 6 months or so. Seems quite harmful for the
startups...

------
brezina
I won't even think of building for Windows phone until I see them in the wild.
I did see one at the cable car turn around in San Francisco - so I asked the
guy using it... Yup, he worked for MSFT

------
TouchMint
It has turned into a very useful discussion. I am planning porting a few
things over from iOS next year.

There are a few things I still need to figure out before going over there tho.

Where to get a free/cheap device? I keep hearing people saying they got free
testing devices

What lang I need to write in for it to work on win7phone, win8phone and
win8rt/win8

~~~
toolboc
Find out who your local Microsoft Phone Champ is (Attend a .NET user group and
ask or use the less social way described her:
[http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Need-to-find-
your-l...](http://channel9.msdn.com/coding4fun/blog/Need-to-find-your-local-
Windows-Phone-Champion-Heres-an-OData-service-Phone-app-and-source-that-
will)). Windows Phone technically supports any .NET language but most articles
will be in C# then a big drop off to VB and there are some nuances see:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4539876/is-it-possible-
to...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4539876/is-it-possible-to-program-
for-windows-phone-7-in-standard-c-only).

~~~
TouchMint
Thanks!

------
dazzla
I have an iOS/Android app side project that I'm interested in porting to
Windows Phone 8/7. I have never worked in the microsoft eco system. I have 2
questions.

What would be a good test device? No contract, not too expensive but also a
viable device.

Anywhere or anyone recommended to do the development?

~~~
meaty
You can get a lumia 710 for not much. Doesn't do windows phone 8 but all the
7/8 portable apps will work on it.

Never test on a flagship device!

~~~
JakeSc
What do you mean by "flagship device"?

~~~
meaty
Lumia 820/920

------
anonymous1983
I released 1 app that took me 2 weeks to build. I've made a spanking $40
within the last 3 weeks. I get about 300 downloads a day.

