How much can I earn making mobile apps

Tips Dec 17, 2014

How much can I earn making mobile apps?

Have you ever wonder how much money you can make doing mobile apps? Probably you did, because we are flooded with some unbelievable statistics about the mobile market. Thousands of new apps, tens of thousands downloads, millions made on games, and small islands bought by young billionaires. I bet that the idea of being a part of it crossed your mind, to take just a little slice of a cake.

If you didn’t board, because of a lack of programming skills, or any other reason, then you will find a lot of good news during the next 3:45 minutes.

How does the market work?

Let me just outline mobile market for you, before i get into money statistic. Whether you are a pro or not, there are two ways to earn on mobile applications. You can either make apps for your clients or make one for yourself and monetise it.

Reselling apps is a good business. Price of a single app can vary from few to several thousands dollars, and depends on few factors:

  • Complexity: Does your client know exactly how the app should look like or he just knows that he wants an app.
  • Compatibility: number of platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry).
  • Functionality: push notifications, GPS, store, payments…
  • Quality: style, look & feel, animations, etc.

Clients are usually small businesses such as restaurants, shops, gyms, but also events, festivals, schools and nonprofits.

Although there is more and more demand for custom apps, the real money lays in monetisation. Why? Because sky’s the limit. If the app get a good positioning on app stores, it might get hundreds of thousands of downloads, so all you need is to sit down, relax and count clicks. Selling your app and offering it for free and earn from advertising are probably the most famous ways to monetise your apps, but other methods like in-app purchases are getting popular. Out of many types, games, problem solvers, guides and entertainment apps are almost certain way to earn. If you are publishing for Android, you’ll probably prefer to monetise your apps through advertising, since that normally performs better.

Statistic below are based on ad revenue. It is important, because specially in Google Play, which represent almost 70% of mobile market, paid apps aren’t doing any good.

Code-free apps

But how can I make app without getting into specific programming languages? Well, listen to this story as a proof that anybody can make apps. I remember one time we had guests in our office in downtown. Some parents who wanted to ask few questions, because their 12-year-old son just earn few thousand euros on his first app. Basically they wanted to know whether they have to pay some taxes. Now he is one of our most successful users, who is now making way more than his parents. But he is not the only one.

With services such as Mobincube, building mobile applications is as easy as playing puzzles. Actually, that’s what you do. You just drag elements and put them in the place you want them to be, everything else is automatic and works smoothly. All you need is the ability to move your mouse precisely, and I know you can cause you are reading this post, so there is no excuse now;)

To make a simple app you just need one or three hours, and that’s only if you learn it from the beginning. If you don’t want to spend time for graphic or you feel better in promotion than in design, you can choose from almost 30 different templates. If you do so, making a gorgeous and user friendly app, with personalised data, might take few minutes.

Money statistics

Few days ago we analysed how much our clients are earning. We took last 90 days and only one ad provider. Data we received is, so to speak, encouraging.

On average, the most involved users, were making $2305 every month!

Do you think that’s awesome? Hold on it is getting even better, because none of them makes apps from 9 to 5. They invest their time after daily job, study, or well… school.

Of course not every user and every app is earning so good. We noticed that best earning apps makers, have usually around 23 apps in the markets, but they pick a different approach. One way is to focus on quantity and with economies of scale make around $25-$100 on some 25 apps.

On other hand some of them spend more time collecting the content, understanding needs of market and making their apps beautiful. They release only around 2-5 apps, but expect profit about $200 – $500 monthly.

Conclusion

Making mobile apps is a good source of passive income. Mobile market is very dynamic, most apps start earning within 20 first days, and are profitable for months. You can easily start at home, making some apps from time to time, and slowly building a base that will lead to big money. In the end, it is your decision either you keep it as profitable hobby or become a freelancer who makes his own future. Anyway, it is quite good for couple hours work, isn’t it?

Did you like this post? Have you ever thought about earning on mobile apps, or maybe you are already a successful entrepreneur? I would love to hear what do you think about it in conversation below. Please let me know your opinion in comments!

Tags