So how much do indie developers make?
Whether you are starting out, or have been an indie developer for a while, you are probably curious as to how well indie developers are doing in terms of revenue and sales. You may also have noticed that there are not too many indie developers that talk about it either. Finding data is really tough and usually when there are discussions about App Store economics it focuses on the bigger picture, or on the ultra-success stories, like Flappy Bird or Crossy Road or other mega hits.
But knowing how other indie developers are doing is critical to really understanding the business of developing apps. There is a lot that can be learned from their successes and failures. Understanding the famous “hockey stick” curve you will see in most of the posts below is fundamental in understanding the life cycle of app sales.
I have collected posts from the past few years, that indie developers have put on their blog, personal website, or company website, each with varying levels of detail and analysis. These are the best ones I have found, but if you have others then by all means message me on Twitter @manitobaninja or @third_beach and let me know. I would love to build as comprehensive a list as possible because I believe that the insight these posts provide is incredibly valuable to anyone who is just starting out, or looking to better focus their own existing business.
21 January 2016 – This is from indie developer Trevor McKendrick. It breaks down how he did in 2015 with his Spanish Bible app (there is also a link to a post he did in the previous year with his 2014 figures). He goes into good details with his numbers and does a bit of analysis too. Short but to the point.
Life and Death in the App Store
2 March 2016 – This is a very detailed, long form article, written by Casey Newton for The Verge about Pixite, a company who has released many apps into the App Store. This gives numbers and a lot of details about their story, and their successes and failures. A really great read.
7 May 2015: An article by Dan Counsell, Product Designer and Founder of Realmac Software that shows a snapshot of one day of sales of the companies products, the most popular of which is the Clear to-do app. No real analysis, just an interesting peak at what kind of numbers one of the more successful companies out there gets.
4 Years of Success and Failure on the App Store
7 May 2015 – Derek Clark is an indie developer who wrote a Medium post that details how he has done over a 4 year period in the App Store. This is not heavy in numbers, but he does provide enough for it to be helpful, along with some graphs that show long term ups and downs, and some discussion of his successes and failures along the way and what he attributes to them.
5 May 2015 – An infamous blog post by Sam Soffes on his top ranked Mac app, Redacted. It is a short article but provides a pretty interesting, if not bleak, glimpse into the Mac App Store.
Desk App’s 2014 Year in Review
26 January 2015 – A post by John Saddington on his personal blog which discusses the release of a side project he did. Despite this just being a side project he clearly spent a lot of time working out a marketing strategy and goes into a good amount of detail in his post.
19 January 2015 – Charles Perry, founder of Metakite software, published this post on the distribution of Revenue versus US Top Grossing Rank for apps on the App Store. It is imperfect data, which he acknowledges, and there is a follow up piece that addresses a number of criticisms. Still, it does provide some pretty interesting insight on where you need to be relative to this graph and app store ranking in order to earn a living solely from the app store.
15 January 2015 – This is a collection of infographics showing how much Monument Valley had made up to that point, as well as other stats such as what percentage of users came from which country and in game usage of the camera. Monument Valley is a big game, and not representative of the typical indie developer experience, but its still interesting nonetheless.
15 January 2015 – This a post by Marco Armendt which reveals his sales and revenue for 2014 for his popular podcast app, Overcast. This is before it went to a patronage model so it will be interesting to see if he releases those numbers one day. Nothing wildly detailed but he does give out the stats people are most interested in and gives some context and analysis for them.
How HoursTracker earns five figures a month on the App Store
7 January 2015 – A Medium post by Carlos Ribas discussing how his HoursTracker came to be, how much it earns, and his thinking behind its continued development. It does not go into numbers in the same level of detail as other posts, but still an insightful read.
January 2015 – A post by indie developer William Wilkinson on how his app, Manual, did in its first 100 days. Colourful writing and some useful graphs as well. (As an aside his homepage has some really great photography that is well worth checking out!)
Another non-indie developer App Store story
30 July 2014 – This is a post from a hobbyist developer, Mohammad Azam, who talks about his experiences and earnings from a number of apps he did as side projects in his spare time. There are no ground breaking revelations, but it is one more perspective to add to the list.
A Candid Look at Unread’s First Year
28 July 2014 – A post by Jared Sinclair about his Unread app. This goes into a lot more detail then most other posts do in terms of his numbers and the various marketing strategies he employed. He does a good job giving a context for his target audience and the apps performance.
A Candid Look at the Financial Side of Building Mac Apps on Your Own
28 July 2014 – A post by Tyler Hall which looks at how his company, a side venture called Click on Tyler, has done since it started releasing apps in 2007. He focuses on a few, higher priced apps, and has a different market than most indie developers. Not heavy on the numbers, but interesting to see how someone who has played the long game has done.
29 Jan 2013 to 7 Dec 2014 – This is not like the other articles I am posting. One, it isn’t an article, rather it is a collection of blog posts from developer Amir Rajan about his app Dark Room. And two, the posts are written as it happens creating a journal of his experience launching and then promoting the app. You get numbers. You get frustration and emotion. You really see the process and follow the timeline of his apps performance in real time. Though it isn’t polished it is quite interesting to read and to see how it all unfolds.
Manitoba Ninja 