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How does an app like this make money? I made an app that I simply can’t promote because it would bankrupt me. Every person I share it with thinks it’s genius an

How does an app like this make money? I made an app that I simply can’t promote because it would bankrupt me. Every person I share it with thinks it’s genius and been using it but if it ever hits critical mass without me knowing it, id be those guys with the “my cloud provider reamed me overnight” posts.

throwaway290 7mo ago
pro features and IAP
nemothekid 7mo ago
I use the Flighty app pretty often, and its $60/year.
- friendzis 7mo ago
  The app is mac/i os-only, though.
  - halapro 7mo ago
    How's this related to anything?
    - friendzis 7mo ago
      It means it's strictly unavailable for ~80% of people out there on Windows/Linux/Android?
      - simonklitj 7mo ago
        Yes, but the question is how it makes money, not whether it could make more money by expanding into other OS’s.
      - ymolodtsov 7mo ago
        I've seen many developers who released the same app on both iOS and Android and realized that Apple platforms still provide them with 80% of revenue for 20% of users. Not that many people on Android are willing to pay $60 for an app.
        ipsento606 7mo ago
        Developing for Android is also a much worse developer experience than developing for iOS, because there are thousands of devices to support, and much greater stratification of operating system customizations and older versions. https://dontkillmyapp.com/ https://dontkillmyapp.com/ is just one example of the kind of problems app developers face on Android
        xd1936 7mo ago
        Yeah, iOS would never kill an app in the background to try and save battery
        kelvinjps10 7mo ago
        IOS it's work at killing apps that android. Some software manufacturers in android allow you to bypass it in the settings.
      - ohhman11 7mo ago
        >It means it's strictly unavailable for ~80% of people out there on Windows/Linux/Android? Those platforms don't generate revenue
      - AdamN 7mo ago
        It's a business - they're targeting revenues. Making it multi-platform would take alot of effort and the value just isn't there for them right now. The smart move is for them to become awesome on iOS (maybe they're close?) and then create an Android CX. BTW, them being iOS-only means they're probably getting lots of marketing support from Apple and other perks. That can really help a startup.
      - halapro 7mo ago
        Ok, post that as a top comment, it's completely irrelevant to the comment that it replied to. Like GP, I'm also a paid subscriber and I couldn't care less where else it's available. If anything, it being a native app rather than a multiplatform JS wrapper is a plus to me.
      - MajimasEyepatch 7mo ago
        That’s true globally, but in the US, iPhones are 60% of the smartphone market. In the US, iPhone users are also younger, more affluent, more educated, and I suspect more likely to fly than Android users. iOS users also dominate in app spending. And from a practical standpoint, 93% of iPhone users are on the latest version of iOS within six months, compared to 20% of Android users, which is huge when it comes to development costs. Source: https://adapty.io/blog/iphone-vs-android-users/ https://adapty.io/blog/iphone-vs-android-users/
    - 9935c101ab17a66 7mo ago
      Right, but the question was “how does this app make money?” And the app being ios/mac only isnt at all relevant to that question.
- kimos 7mo ago
  This app brings me so much delight. Seeing the incoming plane, knowing % chance of onetime or late. Honestly I often know changes from Flighty for my flights before the airlines do or at least before they notify me. I had once my carrier said on time and Flighty said 90 mins delay. I went to the airport on time and turns out flight was delayed. Should have just trusted them!
  - devilbunny 7mo ago
    I'm sure the app is wonderful. I've gotten pretty good at finding this data from other sources, though, and one huge problem is that a delay isn't a delay until the airline says it is. If you carry on every bag and have no special requirements, and you checked in online ahead of time (so you have your boarding pass), it's very useful info and I could see paying for the app. But if, say, you are traveling with a pet that has to be verified at the counter, or you need to check a bag, the time windows for accepting those are set by the scheduled departure time. If your plane is still in the air or hasn't even left its origination airport (and, for the sake of argument here, we will assume you are flying from a smaller airport that doesn't have other aircraft that can easily be reassigned to your flight, so you know it will be delayed), it doesn't matter: they still close the check-in and baggage 45 minutes (on American; YMMV by airline) before scheduled departure. So you have no choice but to get there early and wait unless your airline actually declares the flight delayed when they know it will happen.
WaxProlix 7mo ago
Ads? It's not great for users but it's decent monetization. If you really have something good, like actually liked, you can do a donation vs ad-supported model.
- culopatin 7mo ago
  I’ve ran the numbers and the APIs I have to pay for would be more expensive. I’ve tried caching the data which works to some degree but still a negative unless I really degrade the experience
vasco 7mo ago
All my projects are also pure genius and the only reason they are not hyper successful is they'd be too expensive to run too. The main reason I also am not president of the world already is because I wouldn't like the attention.
littlecranky67 7mo ago
Why does everything have to make money? People like to built things as a hobby. If you stay away from expensive cloud providers and use cheap vServers, you can host a site like that for around 5-20$/month (depending on number of users).
- GJim 7mo ago
  Some people wonder why kids climb trees.
  - AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
    According to this comment section kids climbing trees shouldn't happen at all. It's not profitable enough.
- jasode 7mo ago
  >Why does everything have to make money? People like to built things as a hobby. The gp asked a reasonable question. Your admonition about making money is misplaced because your assumption about it being a hobby is incorrect. The website was developed by Flighty LLC. To answer the gp's question: Although the website itself doesn't have direct monetization, it acts as "inbound marketing" for the paid iOS app. Clicking on "Download Flighty" takes the user to the Apple App Store: In-App Purchases Week-to-Week Flighty Pro $4.99 Annual Savings Flighty Pro $59.99 Month-to-Month Flighty Pro $9.99 Annual Savings (Family Plan) $119.00 Lifetime Flighty Pro $299.00 Flexible Monthly (Family Plan) $15.99 Week-to-Week Flighty Pro $4.99 Week-to-Week Flighty Pro $7.99 Pro Family Lifetime $449.00 Annual Savings Flighty Pro $59.99 The website's hyperlink url to the App Store page also has a tracking id so the company can attribute downloads/sales back to the webpage. This lets them see how well the "free website" is converting to paid customers. As a vehicle to generate sales leads, it seems to work very well. To wit... Wikipedia says the company has been in business for 7 years and it's been upvoted to the HN front page and we're discussing it. (The Flighty website is an example of the old saying, "The best advertising is free advertising.") It's not just a $5/month VPS. Some cursory googling says Flighty gets data from the FlightAware Firehose api which costs a lot of money. The cost would exceed the financial resources of most people to make an equivalent free hobby website. (https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/documentation https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/documentatio...)
chinathrow 7mo ago
Why do you need a cloud provider? Can't a 5$ VPS do the job?
- esseph 7mo ago
  That's just a cloud with a different company's name attached.
  - jachee 7mo ago
    Yeah, but a $5 VPS won't suddenly surprise you with a five-figure bill.
teaearlgraycold 7mo ago
What’s your app? Where do the costs come from?
ggsp 7mo ago
Have you asked people how much they'd be willing to pay?
woadwarrior01 7mo ago
Subscriptions on the iOS app. Per SensorTower, it's making ~$1m/month. https://app.sensortower.com/overview/1358823008?country=US https://app.sensortower.com/overview/1358823008?country=US
- barbs 7mo ago
  Makes me wonder then why they can't afford a team of Android developers to make the Android version.
  - kimos 7mo ago
    Because they don’t want to? It’s not just about money. It’s complexity, company size, management, etc.. Loss of focus by having to build a new app from ground up. Features and improvements take longer as they have to be done twice. Parity problems. Support debt. Maintaining multiple versions of the same app isn’t just “hire more”. As you agreed with, they are successful. Maybe they’re happy with that.
  - avalys 7mo ago
    It’s not that they can’t afford it, it’s that Android users aren’t worth the investment.
  - aurmc 7mo ago
    I'm sure they can afford that, but would that end up paying for itself? Would that end up bringing in enough new paying users to justify spending all that money on a team of Android engineers? They probably haven't done it because it doesn't make sense for them financially.
- culopatin 7mo ago
  That to me is amazing. I would not pay that much for this and I guess I project that on the user base
aledevv 7mo ago
The popularity and traffic it brings is a gain and a value itself. The web specialists will be able to simply convert it into economic value.
wayne 7mo ago
If you search for them on LinkedIn, it's a small team of ~5 outside of Silicon Valley (Austin, Spain, Norway). I'm sure they're doing quite well but even if they were doing just ok it doesn't have to make billions for everyone to do ok.

throwaway290 7mo ago

pro features and IAP

nemothekid 7mo ago

I use the Flighty app pretty often, and its $60/year.

friendzis 7mo ago
The app is mac/i os-only, though.
- halapro 7mo ago
  How's this related to anything?
  - friendzis 7mo ago
    It means it's strictly unavailable for ~80% of people out there on Windows/Linux/Android?
    - simonklitj 7mo ago
      Yes, but the question is how it makes money, not whether it could make more money by expanding into other OS’s.
    - ymolodtsov 7mo ago
      I've seen many developers who released the same app on both iOS and Android and realized that Apple platforms still provide them with 80% of revenue for 20% of users. Not that many people on Android are willing to pay $60 for an app.
      - ipsento606 7mo ago
        Developing for Android is also a much worse developer experience than developing for iOS, because there are thousands of devices to support, and much greater stratification of operating system customizations and older versions. https://dontkillmyapp.com/ https://dontkillmyapp.com/ is just one example of the kind of problems app developers face on Android
        xd1936 7mo ago
        Yeah, iOS would never kill an app in the background to try and save battery
        kelvinjps10 7mo ago
        IOS it's work at killing apps that android. Some software manufacturers in android allow you to bypass it in the settings.
    - ohhman11 7mo ago
      >It means it's strictly unavailable for ~80% of people out there on Windows/Linux/Android? Those platforms don't generate revenue
    - AdamN 7mo ago
      It's a business - they're targeting revenues. Making it multi-platform would take alot of effort and the value just isn't there for them right now. The smart move is for them to become awesome on iOS (maybe they're close?) and then create an Android CX. BTW, them being iOS-only means they're probably getting lots of marketing support from Apple and other perks. That can really help a startup.
    - halapro 7mo ago
      Ok, post that as a top comment, it's completely irrelevant to the comment that it replied to. Like GP, I'm also a paid subscriber and I couldn't care less where else it's available. If anything, it being a native app rather than a multiplatform JS wrapper is a plus to me.
    - MajimasEyepatch 7mo ago
      That’s true globally, but in the US, iPhones are 60% of the smartphone market. In the US, iPhone users are also younger, more affluent, more educated, and I suspect more likely to fly than Android users. iOS users also dominate in app spending. And from a practical standpoint, 93% of iPhone users are on the latest version of iOS within six months, compared to 20% of Android users, which is huge when it comes to development costs. Source: https://adapty.io/blog/iphone-vs-android-users/ https://adapty.io/blog/iphone-vs-android-users/
  - 9935c101ab17a66 7mo ago
    Right, but the question was “how does this app make money?” And the app being ios/mac only isnt at all relevant to that question.
kimos 7mo ago
This app brings me so much delight. Seeing the incoming plane, knowing % chance of onetime or late. Honestly I often know changes from Flighty for my flights before the airlines do or at least before they notify me. I had once my carrier said on time and Flighty said 90 mins delay. I went to the airport on time and turns out flight was delayed. Should have just trusted them!
- devilbunny 7mo ago
  I'm sure the app is wonderful. I've gotten pretty good at finding this data from other sources, though, and one huge problem is that a delay isn't a delay until the airline says it is. If you carry on every bag and have no special requirements, and you checked in online ahead of time (so you have your boarding pass), it's very useful info and I could see paying for the app. But if, say, you are traveling with a pet that has to be verified at the counter, or you need to check a bag, the time windows for accepting those are set by the scheduled departure time. If your plane is still in the air or hasn't even left its origination airport (and, for the sake of argument here, we will assume you are flying from a smaller airport that doesn't have other aircraft that can easily be reassigned to your flight, so you know it will be delayed), it doesn't matter: they still close the check-in and baggage 45 minutes (on American; YMMV by airline) before scheduled departure. So you have no choice but to get there early and wait unless your airline actually declares the flight delayed when they know it will happen.

WaxProlix 7mo ago

Ads? It's not great for users but it's decent monetization. If you really have something good, like actually liked, you can do a donation vs ad-supported model.

culopatin 7mo ago
I’ve ran the numbers and the APIs I have to pay for would be more expensive. I’ve tried caching the data which works to some degree but still a negative unless I really degrade the experience

vasco 7mo ago

All my projects are also pure genius and the only reason they are not hyper successful is they'd be too expensive to run too. The main reason I also am not president of the world already is because I wouldn't like the attention.

littlecranky67 7mo ago

Why does everything have to make money? People like to built things as a hobby. If you stay away from expensive cloud providers and use cheap vServers, you can host a site like that for around 5-20$/month (depending on number of users).

GJim 7mo ago
Some people wonder why kids climb trees.
- AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
  According to this comment section kids climbing trees shouldn't happen at all. It's not profitable enough.
jasode 7mo ago
>Why does everything have to make money? People like to built things as a hobby. The gp asked a reasonable question. Your admonition about making money is misplaced because your assumption about it being a hobby is incorrect. The website was developed by Flighty LLC. To answer the gp's question: Although the website itself doesn't have direct monetization, it acts as "inbound marketing" for the paid iOS app. Clicking on "Download Flighty" takes the user to the Apple App Store: In-App Purchases Week-to-Week Flighty Pro $4.99 Annual Savings Flighty Pro $59.99 Month-to-Month Flighty Pro $9.99 Annual Savings (Family Plan) $119.00 Lifetime Flighty Pro $299.00 Flexible Monthly (Family Plan) $15.99 Week-to-Week Flighty Pro $4.99 Week-to-Week Flighty Pro $7.99 Pro Family Lifetime $449.00 Annual Savings Flighty Pro $59.99 The website's hyperlink url to the App Store page also has a tracking id so the company can attribute downloads/sales back to the webpage. This lets them see how well the "free website" is converting to paid customers. As a vehicle to generate sales leads, it seems to work very well. To wit... Wikipedia says the company has been in business for 7 years and it's been upvoted to the HN front page and we're discussing it. (The Flighty website is an example of the old saying, "The best advertising is free advertising.") It's not just a $5/month VPS. Some cursory googling says Flighty gets data from the FlightAware Firehose api which costs a lot of money. The cost would exceed the financial resources of most people to make an equivalent free hobby website. (https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/documentation https://www.flightaware.com/commercial/firehose/documentatio...)

chinathrow 7mo ago

Why do you need a cloud provider? Can't a 5$ VPS do the job?

esseph 7mo ago
That's just a cloud with a different company's name attached.
- jachee 7mo ago
  Yeah, but a $5 VPS won't suddenly surprise you with a five-figure bill.

teaearlgraycold 7mo ago

What’s your app? Where do the costs come from?

ggsp 7mo ago

Have you asked people how much they'd be willing to pay?

woadwarrior01 7mo ago

Subscriptions on the iOS app. Per SensorTower, it's making ~$1m/month. https://app.sensortower.com/overview/1358823008?country=US https://app.sensortower.com/overview/1358823008?country=US

barbs 7mo ago
Makes me wonder then why they can't afford a team of Android developers to make the Android version.
- kimos 7mo ago
  Because they don’t want to? It’s not just about money. It’s complexity, company size, management, etc.. Loss of focus by having to build a new app from ground up. Features and improvements take longer as they have to be done twice. Parity problems. Support debt. Maintaining multiple versions of the same app isn’t just “hire more”. As you agreed with, they are successful. Maybe they’re happy with that.
- avalys 7mo ago
  It’s not that they can’t afford it, it’s that Android users aren’t worth the investment.
- aurmc 7mo ago
  I'm sure they can afford that, but would that end up paying for itself? Would that end up bringing in enough new paying users to justify spending all that money on a team of Android engineers? They probably haven't done it because it doesn't make sense for them financially.
culopatin 7mo ago
That to me is amazing. I would not pay that much for this and I guess I project that on the user base

aledevv 7mo ago

The popularity and traffic it brings is a gain and a value itself. The web specialists will be able to simply convert it into economic value.

wayne 7mo ago

If you search for them on LinkedIn, it's a small team of ~5 outside of Silicon Valley (Austin, Spain, Norway). I'm sure they're doing quite well but even if they were doing just ok it doesn't have to make billions for everyone to do ok.