(POLL) How much do YOU make?

[Cynikal]

Now, I'm not going to ask for specifics... but this might help future buyers of this software, as well as squash some curiosity.

NOTE: This is for App's made using Basic 4 Android ONLY. (Not Eclipse)

Also, since this is a poll regarding a generalization...

Please be honest, and this is to be PER MONTH. (Not in Total)

 

[touchsquid]

Well, I am as much of a Dinosaur as any having begun my computer career in 1967 with IBM.

I have written huge apps in the past, like Autoship, but these are 3D CAD apps and need a big screen and precise mouse or digitizer input. The Samsung Note 10.1 is almost ther but not quite yet.

Where do you find those $50K clients?

It seems to me that database apps are the ones that lend themselves best to porting from PCs to smartphones just as they migrated from mainframes to PCs. Graphics apps still need big screens.

 

[bluedude]

Ads vs promotion

So,

If people make money here how do they promote their app? Getting people to find your app. is the biggest investment is my experience.

What tools are the money making apps. use? Do you simply use Google Play or also advertise through AdMod or any other sites/networks.

Cheers,

 

[keirS]

Well, I am as much of a Dinosaur as any having begun my computer career in 1967 with IBM.

I have written huge apps in the past, like Autoship, but these are 3D CAD apps and need a big screen and precise mouse or digitizer input. The Samsung Notw 10.1 is almost ther but not quite yet.

Where do you find those $50K clients?

It seems to me that database apps are the ones that lend themselves best to porting from PCs to smartphones just as they migrated from mainframes to PCs. Graphics apps still need big screens.

Not sure that's true. I am a beta tester for a walk through simulation app. It will never appear on the market because it's aimed at particular industry. The only thing I am allowed to say under the NDA is that it uses distributed processing to get near real time results for rendering. So if you have 5 people on a walk round you have 20 cores sharing the rendering tasks.

I have never seen anything like it on a tablet before. The authors took the risk around 2 years ago that by the time it was ready to launch the hardware will have caught up. It was quite bad using Tegra 2 tablets but it flies using Tegra 3.

 

[mc73]

Not sure that's true. I am a beta tester for a walk through simulation app. It will never appear on the market because it's aimed at particular industry. The only thing I am allowed to say under the NDA is that it uses distributed processing to get near real time results for rendering. So if you have 5 people on a walk round you have 20 cores sharing the rendering tasks.

I have never seen anything like it on a tablet before. The authors took the risk around 2 years ago that by the time it was ready to launch the hardware will have caught up. It was quite bad using Tegra 2 tablets but it flies using Tegra 3.

Tend to agree. Running my monte carlo simulation software pretty well on modern devices.

 

[Beja]

Where do you find those $50K clients?

Not breaking my roof!
but I can say it is single client.. working on a distributed system and B4A made it easier for me to connect the dots (communication). but honestly speaking I am still struggling with some issues because I am new to b4a and have a ladder to climb..
I am not as old in programming as you, but I remember when a friend called me that afternoon, and told me IBM announced a new computer called PC AT with a new keyboard layout. At that time I was using IBM PC XT (for Extra Technology) imagine!
The XT had 256K RAM and 10 MB hard disk, with 5.25" floppy disk. I used BASICA and then QBASIC.. then moved on to Quick Basic compiler. and so on until Visual Basic 1 for DOS.
I will never forget (or forgive) a tech writer in PC Magazine, in late 1989, I was in Brooklyn, NY was reading his article, when he said that IBM announced the Intel 80386 with 30 MHz frequency.. and believe it or not, this rocket scientist said that no CPU in the future will ever pass the 100MHz frequency limit! and he went on (explaining) that transistors have maximum switching speed before burning out!!

Oh, sorry guys I had the wrong exit!

 

[JonPM]

So,

If people make money here how do they promote their app? Getting people to find your app. is the biggest investment is my experience.

What tools are the money making apps. use? Do you simply use Google Play or also advertise through AdMod or any other sites/networks.

Cheers,

I never really did any promotion myself, just put apps on the market. I did some small test runs with adwords, etc, but never saw any results. I'm guessing those avenues are useful if you have a large advertising budget and are just trying to get your name exposed. Because for the most part you'll be paying more for clicks/installs then what you are probably charging.

 

[walterf25]

My Admob earnings

Hi All, I only have one app that is making me some cash right now, but i must say i'm very happy with the revenue, although is not much i can say if i dedicated more time to making more apps and publish them i know i would get more in return, so far i only make around 150 to 200 dollars/per month with this one app, below is a screenshot of my admob earnings this month so far!, i use two different ad networks in my apps, on this particular app i use Admob and Sendroid ads network, it seems to work out pretty good!



Thanks to B4A and it's community!

Cheers,
Walter

 

[touchsquid]

We advertise on Admob with a limit of $10 a day, most days we don't get to the limit, but we pay only about .015 a click. We tried Google adwords but that was about .50 per click and did not generate any sales we could prove.

We spend $300 a month on banner ads at remotecentral.com, and they have a decent click through.

We now have a lot of website traffic and we are on the first page for most of the keywords we use so I suspect we don't really need to advertise much.

we have several web sites, a user forum, and various blogs, use Facebook, twitter and Youtube. None of them works well alone but if you do everything you get results.

A lot of work, and it took us 8 months on Google play before we began to make more than coffee money.

I have been through every PC version of Basic since the original MS-Basic interpreter and now use VB.net 2012. Erel has done a great job with B4A and I love it, a lot more since classes arrived.

VB.net is still a better programming environment but it should be after 35 years or so of continuous development on Intel.

 

[bluedude]

Suse,

Did you just post it to Google Play and made that without advertising yourself? If so, must be an interesting app. then.

 

[susu]

I published 10 apps to Google Play but 1 app was suspended, 1 app was unpublised by myself. I have 1 app that over 500,000 downloads, 2 apps over 100,000 and the rest got 10,000-50,000 downloads. Believe it or not, I spent nothing for advertising! All what I did was present them to a forum.

As I told before, my scenario is very simple: Making an easy app in my language (not English). I started with Horoscope, TV Guide, 101 Romantic Ideas... It's not hard to do but it's unique. At the moment I published it, there're no competitors. In each app I place a "More apps" button to link to all my apps on Google Play. Once again, it worked like a charm.

Another important thing is focusing on the popular device. In my country it's Samsung Galaxy Y because it's cheap so everybody can buy it. If your app looks weird on its small screen, you will be flooded with many bad reviews => your app will be failed.

I used to update my app about each 10 days. Thanks to new "smart system" of Google Play, the users don't need to download the whole app so a 10MB app can be downloaded in only 5-6 seconds. It's important because it increases the rank of your app. I always try to keep my app on top 10 of Top Free category.

That's all my secrets! I used to earn 3000$-4000$/month only from ads. (My record is 5000$). I hope my real story will encourage you to make more good apps.

 

[bluedude]

Suse,

Thanks for your info. None of the apps. you mention would be something I would download but that makes it even more interesting how you get these download numbers.

With unique you mean no other apps. that do this stuff? Must be hard, every app. is already made.

Makes me curious which forum you talk about because your numbers are not average numbers for sure

Cheers and thanks.

 

[susu]

Hi Bluedude,

I meaned "unique" app is the basic app but in my language. When I published, there's no app like it. Another way is making an app from old idea but with new function. For example, Instagram is not the first app to share pictures but it's the first social picture sharing with many effects.

I also used to browse Apple App Store to find inspiration, believe me there're many apps from App Store which Android's users wish to have.

The forum I mentioned is in my language so I don't think you can read it. And because some reasons I will share my app's link by private message only. I'm sorry but I had bad experience before.

 

[touchsquid]

App sales

Our app sales on Google are now a serious source of revenue. Our best month was March with net revenues in the $9000 range, and May is looking stronger.

Thank you Erel and all the other forum users for helping to make this possible.

We are now advertising on Google adwords. Last year it did not pay but now it seems to work. Budget is 10 to $20 a day. USA is 80% of business followed by Germany, Canada and UK in that order. We have sold in over 70 countries now but some have only one user

 

[Erel]

Our app sales on Google are now a serious source of revenue. Our best month was March with net revenues in the $9000 range, and May is looking stronger.

Sounds like you are doing a great work! Well done.

 

[susu]

Hi Touchsquid,

Woah, you're the best!
I wish I could sell my app like you. Hope Google will add my country in furture.

 

[yttrium]

Don't limit yourself just to the android market. Look at areas like the enterprise market. I'm finishing up an app for a large manufacturing company and will make pretty good money. I have another one in the beta phase for a shipping company. Make inquiries at the company you work for or maybe a company a friend works at.

I'm also creating a iPhone version of my app which I plan on using Corona(until Erel creates a iOS dev platform *HINT* *HINT*) so if anyone here has any experience with it I would love to hear about it.

This. I'm about to make $1000 using a simple calculator I've written in B4A. Contracts for apps are great.

Also, Erel probably won't write an iOS IDE because of the complications of compiling for iOS - you need OS X and Apple is very restrictive on languages.