

My experience selling apps on the Android Market - starnix17
http://blog.endlesswhileloop.com/post/980406977/my-experience-selling-apps-on-the-android-market

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dpcan
Don't worry about it, it's still early for you.

My first Android app made $198 in 6 months. My second app made $65 in 5
months. Then another is at $256. (all games)

I have some more games out that don't have this problem :)

It's like throwing darts at a board and hoping one sticks, then after one
sticks, and you have it figured out, you start going for the bulls-eye.

NOTE: To hit the bulls-eye you'll need to create something of great value and
high quality, plus it should take time and passion to build. My best app took
the longest amount of time to develop, has the most polish, required the most
logic, and I am still updating it often.

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warp
Do you maintain websites for your apps? (I looked in your profile, no links
there). I may want to try your stuff.

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starnix17
Not really, I have this: <http://endlesswhileloop.com/apps/> but it's more of
just a web page that lists everything.

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watmough
Thanks for the post!

It seems like you have a great opportunity, at low risk, to try some things:

    
    
        - Cranking the price up to say $5
        - Adding in license server code, and logging piracy
        - Defeaturing your free version.
    

Any of these tests would make for a really interesting post, and also
indirectly promote your app.

I'm not at all disparaging your efforts, but it seems like an instapaper
client should be able to make a lot more money than $130.

I'm also wondering whether, in general, quality Android apps will settle out
at higher prices than comparable iOS apps, just simply due to there seemingly
being fewer people willing to spend.

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tieTYT
If I were you, I'd explain what Instapaper is on your post. I had to google it
separately. Basically, it lets you save a website page to read later on any
computer you have the plugin installed on.

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rahim
Can you--or any other Android app developers--share what your active install*
percentages are? I'm curious what's normal for the Market.

You're fairing a lot better than I am. I put my first Android app out a month
ago (Gas Log) and have made a whopping total of $2.80 in ad revenue. (With an
active install rate that fluctuates in the 40%-50% range.)

* active installs are the number of people that downloaded the app and kept it (i.e. did not uninstall or return the app).

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starnix17
40%-50% seems standard, some novelty apps my friends have out only have like a
20%-20% install rate

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kostmo
For anyone interested in getting detailed metrics on revenue, I just released
an app for making plots of income from the Android Market over time. It grabs
data automatically from Google Checkout, allows you to distinguish between
apps, and overlays price curves.

I've made about $5K over the last year on 4 paid apps. I've posted a bunch of
revenue plots here: [http://sites.google.com/site/droidful/my-apps/devrev-
develop...](http://sites.google.com/site/droidful/my-apps/devrev-developer-
revenue) There's also a QR code for the revenue tracking app.

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nuclear_eclipse
Thanks again for Hard Copy. It's the best Instapaper app for Android. Well
worth the price. :)

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makeramen
here are my numbers to compare, including install base, etc. I wonder how
representative these are of the market as a whole.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1620072>

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jscore
Interesting post.

How many hours would you say it took to write the app?

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starnix17
I'm not sure of the hours, but I would definitely make more money of I was
doing contract work for someone else.

