How much money can you earn with an iOS App?

You’d be surprised—or shall I say “shocked” after knowing how much money some of the top apps make. Just to fire up your curiosity, I’ll also tell you about an app that was making $5 BILLION on the App Store.

Apps are everywhere. For some, it is an awesome passive income, and for many it has become a full-grown business. The presence of giant App Stores like Apple, Google, and Huawei has given users the chance to make their life easier while also giving businesses the opportunity to grow more than ever.

Brands have realised...

Just five years back, most of the businesses still didn’t find Apps to be a really lucrative market. Even the big brands preferred websites, TV, and other traditional markets. However, the gigantic influx of consumers on the App Stores have proven that Apps has already become the next big thing and it is here to stay.

So, coming back to our theme, how much can you earn from an App Business or even a single App. As discussed previously in one of my post on Linked In, I talked about how much money some of the manor brands were making. Fortnite, for instance, was generating $5 billion from the Apple App Store alone. Netflix is generating almost a billion and even the infamous Candy Crush is said to be earning $1 million per day when it was at the peak.

But do all apps make billions or even millions?

Well, the answer is a disappointingly “NO”. Not all apps make billion, millions, or even a single cent. The state of income really varies from niche to niche. Some niches like Health & Fitness, Utilities, and Photo & Videos are really lucrative while other niches are not so. Some niches are seasonal like Travel and Sports apps, while others like Shopping and Games are evergreen.

It also depends on the business model. A subscription model, in most cases, if done right, will always bring more revenue than IAPs. While a user may purchase an IAP once or twice (unless it’s a game) a subscriber will pay you every week, month, or year as long as he stays with your app.

Also, for games especially on the App Store, and almost every app + game on the Play Store—the most profitable source of income is showing ads. However, Ads sure are intrusive and may do some damage as well.

How much money can you earn with 1000-2000 downloads?

But as I work mostly on the App Store, let’s compare how much can you earn in various categories assuming you have a decent amount of downloads (1500-2000 downloads each day), a conversion rate of 5% and a subscription model under $10.

Utilities:

This category entails apps that we use anywhere from a daily basis to occasionally. For example, the category is filled with QR code scanners, VPN, browsers, and other sorts of apps that may come in handy when doing a specific task. In my personal experience, you can earn up to $5K easily per week if you have a high-quality app in a strong niche and you are ranking decently on your keywords.

Productivity:

Productivity consists of apps that are used almost daily. The category is filled with apps like calendars, to-do lists, journals, diaries, remote controls, habit-forming, and meditation apps. Basically, anything that can boost your productivity. Likewise utilities, you can earn up to $10K per week quite easily based on where your app is ranking. One of the top apps in this category is also earning $3 Million every month.

Photos & Videos:

Well, we all love taking photos and making videos. We also love to add a bit of colour to our photos and videos. This is what this category offers. However, this category is highly saturated. If you aren't offering a novel idea, frequent content, and timely updates, you may not succeed in this category. The apps with average downloads have the IAP model instead of subscriptions and therefore may earn less than other categories. But while it lacks in recurring purchases, the massive volume of users help the apps earn a lot. You can easily earn anywhere from $5K-20K if your app witnesses quite a large volume of downloads.

Games:

Businesses are literally earning billions of dollars in this category. The games category has some of the most versatile sub-categories on the App Store. For example, these days, Hyper-Casual games are all the rage. If you come up with a really crazy good idea to engage users in your app, you can easily earn up to $100K - $1 Million. However, Games are much different from the apps so our basic idea of CR and daily downloads don't apply here. You will need a massive influx of users and a high retention rate to earn that kind of money. The chances of failure are enormous.

Health & Fitness:

This category literally boomed during the pandemic. App users from all over the world directed themselves towards this category to find meditation apps, home fitness, relaxing yoga melodies, healthy food recipes and whatnot. I have seen many global app founders in the Health & Fitness category tell their story of how their apps made millions of dollars during the lockdown. However, the competition is really high and many brands with funding on their backs are competing in this category. You will need novelty, dedication, and big bucks to compete in this category. On average, you can earn anywhere from $15K-$30K per week if you are getting 2000 downloads and converting a large portion of them every day.

Conclusion:

So, guys, this was my basic analysis of few categories. I have personally experienced some of them and shared the analysis based on my own apps. The results drastically vary based on the number of downloads, quality of your app, pricing, conversion rate, and retention of your app. This article is mainly designed for indie developers who do not have the budget to compete with mega-brands and enjoy a decent amount of downloads mostly.

They sure can turn this into a business and if you make 4-5 good apps, you can easily earn anywhere around $50K per month. Unfortunately, many App Developers lose their heart and stop putting efforts into their bloodborne apps.

I would recommend that if you have an app with high potential but couldn't grow it yourself, contact an ASO Expert and work with him or her to grow your app to a point where you can use the money to create and market other apps with novel ideas.