Most iPhone Apps Make No Money (But That Shouldn’t Stop You)
By Anna Johnson on May 27th, 2009Rick Strom has written a timely blog post that provides a sober perspective on the likelihood of hitting it big with an iPhone application on the iPhone App Store. According to Rick, the likelihood is actually rather low.
Rick says that he has 20 iPhone apps in the App Store, including three on the most popular charts. As at the date of Rick’s post, his most downloaded apps were: Zen Jar, ranked #34 in the Social Networking (Paid) category; Spirit Board, ranked #36 in the Board Games (Free) category; and Spirit Board Pro, ranked #95 Board Games (Paid) category.
According to Rick, to get a #34 ranking on the social networking charts, you need 30-35 downloads per day. If you charge the standard price of $0.99 per download, then after Apple takes its 30 percent commission, you end up making about $20 per day.
Not exactly Earth-shattering…
But it gets worse. If there are some 25,000 applications in the App Store (that’s based on April 2009 figures; Rick says 36,000, which may be more accurate now)… and the chart-making apps are only generating 2 or even 3 figures per day… it’s probable that the vast majority of apps are making absolutely no money at all.
Consequently, Rick objects to the hype about the iPhone app success stories, and suggests that programmers wanting to get in on the act should think in terms of the average performance of App Store iPhone apps, not the hits. In doing so, they may want rethink the likelihood of becoming rich selling iPhone apps…
In fact, Rick Strom likens the App Store to a lottery, where submitting an app is like buying a lottery ticket: there’s absolutely no guarantee of success, and you’re most likely to lose whatever you invested in creating and submitting the app (development costs, time, App store costs and the biggie: opportunity cost).
Call me glass-half-full but telling an aspiring iPhone developer not to develop an app because most apps don’t make any money is a bit like telling someone not to aim for the Olympics, or aspire to be a Hollywood star, or even just start a small business… simply because most people attempting such feats fail.
But that’s also why attempting such feats should never be based on chance. Talent and persistence, yes. Chance, no.
Likewise with producing an iPhone app. The statistical probability of creating a killer app may be low, but probability shouldn’t stop you from if you’ve got the talent and persistence.
Nor do you need to play the iPhone ‘lottery’. Just as no right-minded author would ever rely on Amazon, or any other bookstore, or even their publisher, to do their marketing for them… you can’t rely on the App Store to do all your marketing for you.
Sorry, just submitting your app to the App Store and hoping people will flock to you just won’t work when you’re competing with thousands and thousands of other apps. On the contrary, you need to use all the marketing tools available to you to promote your app, just as you would with any other product.
But Rick makes a really good point. No-one says it’s easy to become an Olympic athlete, a Hollywood star, or a successful business owner. But, thanks to all the attention given to the most successful iTunes apps, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s easy to create a best-selling iTunes app.
Perhaps Rick’s post will go some way to bringing us all back to reality…
Source: Rick Strom, “The Incredible App Store Hype,” Stromcode, May 24, 2009
