What is a Donate button really worth?

[Starchild]

I must admit that I've never received any money through a Donate button.
Most probably this is because people feel I don't offer anything much of value.

But putting this aside for the moment, I thought I would browse around and look for other opinions regarding getting paid for apps and software.
These are a few of the interesting links I have found.

• Who really pays for Open Source Software
• Paid vs. Free Software: Your Best Arguments
• Selling Free Software
• There's a Psychological Reason Why People Don't Want To Pay For Apps

I hope some of the more seasoned B4X users can share their own experiences on this thread so we can all better determine the reality of getting payed for our work.

 

[sorex]

I guess it's depending who you're helping out.

some people ask a question and if a simple answer put them on the right track they donate something.

in other cases where actually coding is needed you sometimes get something minimal or nothing at all even if you spent some time on it (coding/explaining).

in most cases you simply get nothing at all and worst case barely a thank you reply and then it's not even clear if it's a case closed or not.

you know this when participating in a forum where it is goodwill from both ends without obligations.


for the apps I just use the free apps and hope to see some ad revenue.
putting a price on an app scares a lof of the audience away.

 

[Starchild]

I guess it's depending who you're helping out.

some people ask a question and if a simple answer put them on the right track they donate something.

in other cases where actually coding is needed you sometimes get something minimal or nothing at all even if you spent some time on it (coding/explaining).

in most cases you simply get nothing at all and worst case barely a thank you reply and then it's not even clear if it's a case closed or not.

you know this when participating in a forum where it is goodwill from both ends without obligations.


for the apps I just use the free apps and hope to see some ad revenue.
putting a price on an app scares a lof of the audience away.

Hi

When helping out other users I agree that I am pretty happy with a "Thankyou". Myself, I have had an incredible amount of help from others on B4X forum.

But regarding your own coding work, such as a published app, After reading the articles listed above, I now have a better idea of why people expect apps for free. I wonder what the ad revenue ratio would be (cents per download). I expect its very/very low.

I wonder if other users would also like to share?

 

[sorex]

I wonder what the ad revenue ratio would be (cents per download).

it doesn't work that way.

a lot of them only give you something when people install apps through your app.

admob for example also rewards you when they visit ads via your app.

so you can't say 1000 people install my app that's 1000 x €0.5 guaranteed
even when you put a price on your app you are not sure about it either as they can request a refund.

but indeed everyone expect your app to be free so that leaves not much options besides ads and in-app purchases.

 

[Starchild]

So unless an app is extremely popular, the ad revenue is going to be very low.
Social media popularity is a difficult thing to crack and maintain.

I think the only way to be paid for the many hours we give up creating apps is to find a
"niche" market, ie. tide to a specific industry through integration to other things (software/products/physical-environment).
Most PAID apps would be these ones, but the volumes are usually quite low, so the revenue still doesn't reflect the hours.

Of course, another way is to be contracted and do the work for someone else. But again generally the customer rarely understands or has the budget for the actual hours work required. Even publishing an app onto a Store can take many extra hours. eg. staying up to date with Xcode and preparing the photos and other media formats required for the app release.

One of my reading links (top post) takes about the only reward for most app developers is the personal satisfaction that comes from taking an idea through to completion. It makes it difficult to pay the bills with personal satisfaction.

I am still interested in other B4X users experience regarding monetizing apps (and other software) and the rewards generated.

 

[Starchild]

So an app needs to be extremely popular.
Social media popularity is difficult to crack and maintain.

Another way would be to write an app for a "Niche" market. eg. to integrate with something else (eg. software/product/physical-environment). Then it becomes a "Must Have" for those people involved in that "niche"market. Although you can now make the app PAID it will usually still have a low number of users relative to the actual work required to create it.

Of course, we could get a contract and do the work for someone else, but even then, the customer often does not understand or have a budget to cover the actual hours required for the project.

It amazes me how much time we loose keeping up-to-date with the ever changing requirements of the online App Stores (SDKs, Xcode, NSA). Then there is the extra time required for new photos formats and other media in order to complete an app release. If it wasn't for B4X forum (and Erel) this would be beyond a sole developer's ability or you would just run out of hours in a day.

I hope other B4X users will jump in and share their app (and other software) revenue experiences.

 

[LucaMs]

I removed my "donate button" years ago; the reason is just one: B4X members are stingy

 

[DonManfred]

I can not say anything about rewards from advertisers as i do not have any single apk with ads.

I fell in live with B4A years ago and i started wrapping libraries to be used in B4X.
A few i marked as donationware, a few i marked as chargeable, most of the libs i provided for free.

But i always had a donate button available.

Over the years i can say that i got around $1000 coming from any donation. Most of a amount of $US 5-20

About $500 for the chargeable libs i published.

But i must say most of the money i earned i did make doing jobs for customers, wrap a lib for them, or do other codings for them.

Under the line i must agree with Luca

the reasone is just one: B4X members are stingy

This is not valid for anyone here in the forum though. But basically i do aggree.

 

[Informatix]

One of my libraries, UltimateListView, made me quite a bit of money when it was chargeable because you had to donate before you could use it. Since it's free, late 2018, no one has clicked the Donate button.

 

[Informatix]

What disappoints me a bit is not the lack of donation, but the absence of Likes. It really doesn't cost anything to click on the Like button. Look at the download numbers for the latest version of my ScrollView2D library and the number of Likes since it exists: 2543 vs. 15. It's a good thing I'm not doing this for the Likes...

 

[LucaMs]

One of my libraries, UltimateListView, made me quite a bit of money when it was chargeable because you had to donate before you could use it. Since it's free, late 2018, no one has clicked the Donate button.

Yet developers should know that there is work behind a sw!

 

[Starchild]

It's good to see all your feedback.

I started publishing little VB6 programs back in late 1990s for doing little things from BMP2AVI (slides into a video) to DCmagic (digital camera drag and drop sorter). (my old web site) I was able to ask for $10 to $30 dollars each back then. They generated over $10K over 5 years, paying for my hobby (PC, VB6, Cameras, etc). Who would have thought I was a trend setter selling PC apps, before there were "apps"

I came across B4X back in 2015 and thought this would be a great way to get back into programming and learn about developing mobile phone apps that I could sell. I did not understand that the consumer psychology had changed to the point that apps now have little or no value.

The big monopoly companies (G.., A.., M..) offer so many features for free, that the consumer no longer attaches any monetary value to software.

Asking my friends, "Who has paid for an app?" not surprisingly 99% have never paid for one. Again, I am unique.

As I haven't got into embedding adds yet, I was hoping that this might offer a reasonable return for a free app. You guys have confirmed that other than a few "crumbs" we only do this for the "love of it", even the "Likes" are really lean.

I have started embedding code into my libraries that allow them to run in DEBUG mode only without a ReleaseKey. I thought that if the library was any good, that it had to save a developer $10 which in terms of contracted hourly rate was only a few minutes work (but save them hours if not days). $10 is pretty cheap (only US$6) for a; researched, developed, debugged and maintained library. I think I am a little late to the party. I really don't expect any interest these days for a paid library.

I know you guys have been offering hundreds of great libraries yourselves for many years. I hoped you had a better insight than my own, into getting a reasonable return for your time, other than knowledge and keeping our brains active.

The support of the B4X forum has been fantastic. I could never have got this far without your support. You have offered answers to my stupid and often redundant questions. For that I am very grateful.

My son said to me a few years ago that instead of just asking for answers I needed to get more involved and start "giving back". I have posted many of my developments (specially for B4R and some B4J). I am always reluctant to try answering other user's questions, as I find I'm still learning from the actual answers posted. I hope to get there eventually. I currently limit my answers to my own threads.

I think I need to redirect more of my time into my Kite Surfing as the monetary return seems to be about the same. NONE.
At least it's a lot of fun. Shame about the current lock downs.

 

[sorex]

As I haven't got into embedding adds yet, I was hoping that this might offer a reasonable return for a free app. You guys have confirmed that other than a few "crumbs" we only do this for the "love of it"

well, you never know how it will turn out just.

a lot of people here probably earn nothing or just a few $/€/£/... (cent) per day.
but even an average of $5 per day is still $150 per month of which in most cases is money where you didn't have to do anything for in that month unless you updated your app.
and depending on your needs/lifestyle/country this is either pocket money, a big sack of money or something inbetween.

but there are others aswell who earn quite a lot but they don't always come out with it.

I'd say give it a shot and report back here how it turned out.

Luck is heavily involved tho.

 

[AHilton]

On the flip-side of this, I've contacted this forums' contributors 4 times over the years offering to pay for their (freely shared) library and received 3 "no thanks, just use it as you want" and 1 non-response (although they were still active on the forum for awhile after that). And I'm talking about $200USD + for each.

These were integral parts of some prototype projects (with the B4X tools) that turned out to be commercial ones (although not developed with B4X tools) by my company. I still felt it was important to compensate those programmers just as I would one of my contracted programmers because it saved me time and led to the sales of the final commercial products.

I have nothing to contribute on the ads in apps discussion as I've never done that and never will. Although, I did, once, have a customer that had us develop a regional ad delivery service built on php/MySQL for his many companies' websites.

 

[Alexander Stolte]

You earn something from it, it's not always money, but recognition and experience is also a nice thing. I got 30$ with my AS views, thanks to people who appreciate what you do and see that it saves you a lot of time. But this also resulted in a few orders that were attractive. I use it as a portfolio because it shows what you can do.
And with B4X I learned programming and since last year i work as a full-time developer in a company. Experience and knowledge is important and you best learn that through doing it.

 

[rabbitBUSH]

for the apps I just use the free apps and hope to see some ad revenue.

Lets not forget that we are here to monetize our work FOR G.A.M and not for ourselves. That's the game plan and the business model

 

[Starchild]

I think a large number of us, although getting a lot of satisfaction out of our participation, we are also eager to obtain some form of money/income from the work that we do. It's a matter of self worth. Often this may not come directly from the online input to this forum, but may come later through other opportunities that may arise from being connected here.

But coming back to the question "What is a Donate button really worth?". I think that the concept of a "Donate Button" is similar to "Tipping".

If you go to a hotel the door-man holds the door open for you, you might give him a $1 for his 10 seconds work.
The Bell-hop then takes your bags up to the room, again you might give him a dollar or two for his few minutes work.
You go down to the bar and buy a round of drinks. This takes him several minutes and he might even offer a joke while you wait. You tip him say $5,
After that you go into the restaurant. Buy a good meal with some excellent service. It would be common to tip anything from $20 upwards.

We are very comfortable (Americans especially) with this whole TIPPING thing.
It's odd that we don't offer the same courtesy through the Donate button for people that are;

• giving up a few minutes of their time answering a question,
• browsing the web/forum to find the links to the answers or offering some sample code themselves,
• or, writing a working and tested solution via a library to not only save people many hours/days of time but more often facilitating a solution when there wasn't one without it.

Why do we accept when we get a plumber to come out and replace the water TAP in our bathroom and pay him (in Australia) minimum $150 per hour, with additional call-out fee. Then when you realize a week or two later that it has a slow drip he charges you again to come back and fix it. As software programmers our skill set and knowledge base must be so much less than that of a plumber. Apparently. Don't forget how we usually are expected to offer unlimited warranties as and when bugs show up.

For what ever reason, we just don't seem to value ourselves.

Anyway. That's my "Whinge".

 

[sorex]

We are very comfortable (Americans especially) with this whole TIPPING thing.

this is for europeans not the case in real life.

for example people working in a pub or diner have a "decent" wage.
in the US this is more like minimal and they have to count on the tipping to improve it and it is seen as an obligation of which most foreigners are not aware of.

I use rounding tho if I have to pay €4 and I give 5 I just say keep the change but we don't have it fixed on the bill or expected % of the bill.

Maybe that's why americans are more generous to use the donate button here as it is part of their life style.

 

[Starchild]

this is for europeans not the case in real life.

for example people working in a pub or diner have a "decent" wage.
in the US this is more like minimal and they have to count on the tipping to improve it and it is seen as an obligation of which most foreigners are not aware of.

I use rounding tho if I have to pay €4 and I give 5 I just say keep the change but we don't have it fixed on the bill or expected % of the bill.

Maybe that's why americans are more generous to use the donate button here as it is part of their life style.

I think that's a good point. Americans grow up with the concept of tipping.

But, to be fair, many software programmer and users of this forum, are trying to add a little to their income to help pay the day-by-day bills, similar to a worker in the US service industry.

 

[Ferdari]

I have a donation button on some of my free apps, i just only received 1 donation from an user in more than 3 years, then i offered an InAppPurchase that gives: unlockable premium content + no ads, i received 9999% more revenue with this strategy.

I think we also need to know how to sell or generate profit with our work. you can offer a free app, we can give the user the posibility to have more features, if the user likes your app, will like more if he can have more PREMIUM or EXTRA content/features for a small amount.

Sorry my bad english.

Regards.