

Ask HN: Indie developers..How much money are you making from your app? - mem41

&lt;You may include total users, platform and method of making money&gt; 
I always wonder how much independent developers makes by creating apps. So far I have created just one app on Windows 8 which has 30K downloads and 100 active users and have made $0 (not monetizing).
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valorware
We released 9th Dawn on Google Play in November of 2012. It originally cost
$1.99. There are no ads or IAPs. The first few months it was making between
$3-4k a month. Over time, that has dropped to a rather stable ~$1.5k a month.
In early 2013, we released a free expansion, made the game available on iOS,
and raised the price to $2.99, giving us a sizeable bump in sales (we made
around $11k that month from the spike). Now across all stores, we have a
relatively stable $1.5k-2k a month. We are planning on releasing the remake of
the game across all platforms and on Steam here in a couple months, so we'll
see where it goes from there. It didn't cost very much to develop, so as a
side project that we never expected would generate more than a few hundred
sales, we were quite pleased.

~~~
mem41
that's great. wish you best luck for remake.

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chrisBob
If you are going to take it seriously you have to put some effort into the
advertising also. It is good to hear some success stories in the comments but,
the iOS store at least, is getting full.

I think I put together a decent game with unique play[1], but the paid version
gets maybe 1-2 downloads per week. I did this for fun, and never put any
effort into advertising, but I think that is about what most people see
without a good campaign backing their games. Maybe Windows 8 is young enough
that it is easier to stand out though.

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ocean-
commotion/id518629974?...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ocean-
commotion/id518629974?mt=8)

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arbor
I released a number of successfully apps on the App Store a few years back.
Some of my apps were featured by Apple. My apps made me a boatload of cash
($500k+) back in the App Store gold rush days.

I have not had the time to update any of my apps but I'm still passively
making around $60 a day between 13 apps on two app accounts. All of my apps
are paid (no in-app purchases / no ads).

My apps are mostly educational.

$60 a day of passive income on products I haven't touched in over two years
even surprises me.

I plan on getting back into the app game next month. I'm setting aside time to
update all of my apps and do some marketing.

~~~
mem41
that's cool. you should have continued working on it :P

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ambiate
30,000 active users. Android. Health app that was coded in 2 hours. Ads were
great at $14-19 a day. Using the app myself, I noticed the ads interfered with
the experience. I removed them. $0 for 4 years.

I'm stopping smoking today. I plan to create an Android app every three days.
Hopefully, I can get a little side revenue coming in.

~~~
mem41
I agree that Ads kills the experience. I am working on few more apps and not
planning to add Ads (will add optional buy feature)

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lisard
I made a cooking app, sold it in app store for $1. Got around 1000 downloads,
so it made $700 after Apple's cut. It was featured. It took me one month to
get it done. It still has around 2 downloads a week.

~~~
mem41
1k downloads event after it was featured?

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dangrossman
These threads get a _ton_ more responses when they're about web apps, and I
usually find a new awesome SaaS thing or two run by someone here to try out.
There must be fewer native app developers on HN.

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iosindie
iOS - 40k users in total, 4k daily active users - about $20-30 per day. Single
in app purchase to unlock features, no ads. Huge market though, we're working
to get more press and hopefully Apple will feature us :).

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danvesma
free business app, in the store for three months, downloaded less than 200
times. withdrawn.

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wpdevwp
I make $300 per month for music app

