Let put things in clear prospective for current struggling developers who have realized the reality in hard way, and also to my fellow prospective developers so that they know the ship in which they are aboarding.
My primary purpose of this short article is to spread the reality that the press does not seems to talk about while Apple takes the vowel of silence. Lots of developers probably feel shy to admit these figures, so hope this gives better prospective for everyone.
Who are making money on iPhone
Yes there people making money at the rate of $150,000 - $300,000 per month. Ya, i know, that hurts in many different ways. However, there are developers making only $50 - $150 per month as well. Yes, this also hurts in so many different ways. So let's break it down who is making what.We can divide developers into three categories based on iPhone 'Top Paid' ranking system.
- Top 100 apps (total 100 apps)
They are the one who is making money $5,000 - $30,000 per day! So when you hear about iPhone developer's stories, you hear about them. These apps also belong to next category, but their revenue is huge so I put them in separate category.
- Top 50 apps per category (approximately 200 apps)
These apps are the leaders of per categories. Highly exposed applications. Amount of revenue each of these application is based on two factors, their position as well as category in which they belong to. For example, #1 top paid Business category application may produce less revenue then #15 in Entertaintment category (ya, fart apps), or #20 app in the Utilities category (you guessed it, flashlight). So average these top 50 apps make about $100 - $5,000 or even more. Yes, this is big range to make any useful meaning, but this is how it is. The top 10 of these apps usually belongs to the first category as well. There is big difference between top 1- 5 apps in a category then say 15th or 20th. Huge difference.
- Rest of the apps (approximately 75,000 apps)
So beside these 200 applications, rest of the apps are just there for Apple to use these number in the press, keynotes and to promote iPhone/iPod Touch. It's also helping ATT to subscribe millions new users in 2-year contract. Most developers aren't really even getting their return investments. On average these category of developers making about $2 - $100 a day. If you are 16 years old, and writing apps in your bed to buy new games for X-Box 360, then it's a different story. But if you are not, it is just a "bag of hurt".
So There you have it.