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My Android development income report
- kreci 16y agoComments welcome and very desired =)
- sigzero 16y agoIs it a good model that all the money is actually coming from ads?
- kreci 16y agoI am not able to sell via Android Market as I am not allowed to do it by Google (developers from Poland still can not sell their apps...).
- joshuacc 16y agoWould it be possible to form a US corporation, of which you are the sole employee/contractor in order to sell in the app store?
- kreci 16y agoI think it would be possible but this is not my current business model anyway. Apps I make may do much more as free with ads in it (I do not consider changing it until google add my country to the list...).
- robryan 16y agoI'd be interested in the difference in CPM for something like this in comparison to similar download stats for the iphone. My hunch based on figures we have seen on here from time to time that similar numbers would monetize better on the iphone.
- greengarstudios 16y agoWhat makes the biggest difference on the iPhone is the sheer number of downloads. There are more iOS users, and each user uses a lot more apps. So an app that gets 200,000 downloads on Android, might get 2,000,000 downloads on iPhone. (These numbers are roughly based on actual figures for my apps, like Brain Tuner [a simple game I created], which are available on both iOS and Android.) Even if the CPM stays the same, revenue would be 10x because there are about 10x the impressions.
- tomjen3 16y agoNice to see some numbers, but those seem to be more "fluffy" apps (I mean, really it doesn't enable you to see xray does it?). Apps that have some greater utility might be more popular.
- rmc 16y agoWhat do you use to sell ads?
- jakerocheleau 16y agoI'm curious on this too. I wasn't even aware it was possible to implement ads into an Android app. How would views be tracked? Is it a pay-per-click system? Passing just over $1k for October is impressive in such a small (but rapidly growing) mobile market.
- kreci 16y agoYes. Ads are paid per click. I just implement a library provided by a paying company and it loads banners from their servers.
- justliving 16y agocould you pls specify, which company you are refering to? Would be great to know :-) Cheers
- punjabisingh 16y agoThat ad network could have used all this publicity to get more customers, if you would just share that information. But I understand it is totally your call.
- natep 16y agoJust downloaded Virtual Drums, and he uses AdMob, according to the ads themselves.
- d_r 16y agoYou can use an ad provider such as AdMob or Mobclix, and integration into your app is pretty straightforward. Some services also support dynamic allocation between multiple ad networks. This is useful if you want a higher-paying ad network to serve ads most of the time, and defer to other networks if an ad is not available. Mobclix supports this, as well as the AdWhirl library.
- yatsyk 16y agoDid you evaluate different ad networks and which performed best?
- kreci 16y agoI stay with one ad network that I am 100% sure about making their payment in time and without cheating on clicks and payments...
- maxklein 16y agoI think you are the person who has achieved the most here on hacker news. You lack the ego of a lot of the people who are constantly writing advice articles on how to run a startup (where they don't even have a startup). And you started with small doable things, and worked your way up to a pretty high income (for where you live). The courage to go through this, and the lack of ego in selecting the products is quite inspiring for me. I think people like you should be our real heros, not the people who constantly write comments for upvotes and write fluffy articles about startups. Like I always say: making money on the internet is not hard! If you want to make money on the net, there are many many ways to do so. But most people are out there trying to do stuff that will impress hacker news users. Just keep your mouth shut, make money and forget about all the critics here. There are many, many people who really just care about being lauded by their peers. These are people that are trying to insert themselves into a startupy group of people. They are more interested in the social than in the money. The ones interested in the money are not writing idle comments about various unimportant stuff. Kreci is doing it right. He has found ways to make money, he keeps finding new ways and every month his income keeps growing. Is that not what this game is all about?
- galactus 16y agoI agree. And he does not pretend he is changing the world, as some people here seem to think they are.
- kreci 16y agoThanks for great comment. I am trying all my best to make a living and to inspire some more people to do what I do. As it is really great to be your own boss... =)
- jacquesm 16y agoKreci is doing something right, but I don't think 'cracked screens', 'fake x-ray scanners', 'beauty tips' or 'nuclear buttons' are pushing the envelope on android development in ways that matter. All of them are clear rip-offs (or should I say re-implementations) of similar (useless) apps for the iphone. I'd put the bar a bit higher and say, ok, you've found the way, now make something really impressive instead of a series of knock-offs of 0 utility apps. The virtual drums and the wp stats apps are more like it.
- tocomment 16y agoWhat do you mean by updating apps? Do you have to make minor changes every few days to make sure it's at the top of a list somewhere?
- kreci 16y agoI am making updateds about once a month (I add real features) to keep current users happy (they use my apps again just do discover new options). Another thing if you update your app after some defined by google period your app is shown on the top of new apps again (this does not work if you update too often).
- estel 16y agoApps in the Market will naturally get more attention after they've been updated and appear in the "Just in" lists. So yes, it's a crude way of bumping the app a bit.
- megablast 16y agoThis used to happen on the Apple app store as well, but they stopped it to prevent spurious updates. It was getting out of control. Expect to see this happen in the google marketplace as well.
- atleta 16y agoThe most interesting part of the post for me was that how these totally non-useful apps had a lot of downloads and how the only meaningul one had a fraction of the others. (OK, one can say that the virtual drum is also a meaningful one.) I mean no offense at all, as (unlike with the post from a few days ago with the 4-hour work-week iphone guys) these apps are free and of course anyone is free to sell or buy anything. However it tells a lot about this market. I mean the newly found smart phone market. People run to buy and download totally meaningless apps most of which could have been done (and probably has been done) on other smart phone platforms (or plain j2me) at least 5 years ago. But this is just a small market disturbance, now as iphone opened the eyes of a lot of people that these gadgets are not merely (or mainly...) phones they download every stupid app. But this will go away soon.
- rmc 16y agoHow did you get users? Did you do any promotion or marketing? Or did you just upload to the android market with a 'build it and they will come' attitude?
- kreci 16y agoIf app is good (funny or useful) people will come. As I have been experimenting most of online promotion is not worth efforts/time or money that it may cost.
- es 16y agoIt's interesting that WP Stats is the least popular app. Even simple Big Red Button ("Don't push this button" app) beats it! Actually it's a bit sad to see that market is more favorable to some "cool" simple apps rather to useful, but more complex.
- avgarrison 16y agoIt would be interesting to see how your profits may differ if you were able to sell the apps on the Android Marketplace (without ads). I've been leery about trying ad-based monetization, but it looks like it is working fairly well for you.
- greyman 16y agoSeems like kreci just discovered a new way of making money: 1. find some easy to implement iPhone app 2. rewrite it to Android 3. profit!
- fharper1961 16y agoI know that the Swiss Code Monkeys (http://swisscodemonkeys.appspot.com http://swisscodemonkeys.appspot.com) have been doing this for about 2 years now. They've also done http://AppBrain.com http://AppBrain.com, so they're also doing more ambitious projects too.
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoMany of these apps were ported to the iPhone on the basis of previous success on dumbphones. I don't know what it's like in the US, but these were a big business in Europe. Jamba/Jamster was a big name and their adverts on music television have been bugging me for years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamster
- wgj 16y agoKreci, you used to do monthly income reports. It looks like you're not doing those anymore? I'm probably not alone in being curious how your photography and other streams are doing lately. Thanks for the interesting Android report!
- gtdminh 16y agoi wish he will earn more money doing this way. there is a news here about Quoc Bui and Mike Moon from thefreeapps.com who did earn 80k/month by ads from their iphone apps. i hope android apps will yield the same. Thanks Kreci, you inspire me
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoThese are great numbers! I'm not going to get into blowing smoke up your ass or tell you that you should be saving the world. Remember, there are three types of apps: useful, popular, and money-making. Unless you are independently wealthy, #3 is a must-have: the others are optional. Now -- take what you've learned with these apps and figure out where the next level is. On a side note, I've found that the best projects to launch are projects that turn other programmers off -- much less likely to have competition there and much more likely to find a need to fill. "Programmers don't like it" is quickly moving up my list of tags for a successful startup. It's probably around #4 or so now. Totally awesome. Very well done.
- dpcan 16y agoThat's an interesting tip about what turns programmers off. I've been operating under a similar motto, if it's hard to do, keep doing it. My best apps in the Market do some stuff that takes a lot of work and talent to complete, and those are the things that have the least amount of competition and make the most money. There are developers looking to make a business of the Android Market, and there are some that just want a quick buck. Do something hard to avoid the quick-buckers in my opinion.
- gcheong 16y ago"I've found that the best projects to launch are projects that turn other programmers off" Such as? Just curious to know if the things that turn me off are the same things that turn other programmers off as well.
- gcb 16y agohow do you serve ads on "cracked screen"? also, i'd love to see an ad implementation that would ask "Did you clicked the ad on purpose? YES NO" before opening the browser. ha!
- bignoggins 16y agoJust as a point of reference from the iOS world. My free apps have < 80K downloads total but last month I generated 4K from ads. You really can't beat the eCPMs from iAds. Android is a great platform, but the app market really is miles behind iOS. Rampant piracy, poor app market organization, and difficulty for most users to purchase paid apps means that if you want to actually make a living developing apps, iOS should still be far and away the #1 choice imo.
- Nemisis7654 16y agoNicely done. I recently released my first app in the app store, EasySal Calculator. As I live in America, I uploaded both a paid (adfree) version and a free (with ads) version. I noticed that my free version makes more money as well. I like to hear stories like these. I have been gaining a strong interest in Android Development and these stories make me think that maybe I can be semi-successful at it as well. I don't expect to make loads of cash, not even close to what you're making, but even a little bit makes me feel good.
- revoltingx 16y agoThis is good news. Even with simple apps that aren't games he's making a decent amount of money off ads alone. Too bad he didn't mention what ad network he's using. I'm getting ready to launch my game/app (http://developingthedream.blogspot.com/ http://developingthedream.blogspot.com/) in the next few months and I'm going into it with no expectations. Good to hear i may gain a bit of extra cash from this project. I'm using mobclix and it was really easy to integrate into my app. However, I don't like that the view doesn't auto resize or fill the parent.
- SteD 16y agoI've downloaded the crack screen app and he's using adMob on that one.
- jrockway 16y agoThis just goes to show how worthless mobile ads are. Eventually advertisers are not going to want to pay for the presumably pitiful conversion rate.
- eapen 16y agoYou wrote the "Cracked Screen App". I installed it and love it... it is so realistic. Haven't really had to install it and I didn't notice any ads in it - oh wait... that's probably because I have an adblocker installed on my phone.
- ompemi 16y agoGood article, it is good to show that there are lots of indie devs that earn money with Android. We started last year with Android, and we are making around $2000/month (1M downloads in total) with really simple applications. The majority of the revenue comes from ads, but more and more paid apps revenue is higher!