[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire

[nakamura]

What a journey. I read all pages and they are full of value. It's really amazing to see someone going from 0 to 10k$ per month with apps. Keep it up! I have a quick question, I think i will use unity and c# instead of SwiftUI . Do you think this is a bad move if I want to begin with IOS games? Thanks

For games Unity is great. Of course, it totally depends on your game tho. For normal apps, I would recommend SwiftUI.

 

[Losek]

It really depends. I keep testing different ads, countries and so on. My ads spending is really low $10-20 just for testing purposes. I will start spending the big money once I am sure the app will bring the highest possible ROI. Average CPI also depends on the ad network (as I wrote Facebook is quite shit) and the country. Mostly I target Tier 1 countries. Sometimes I run campaigns that target worldwide traffic, but the ROI is extremely low for Tier 3 countries. Almost none of them is purchasing IAPs.

Got thousands of downloads from Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. and maybe just 2-3 out of 1000 are purchasing anything. From countries like Germany, USA, France, Japan it is like 10 people out of 100.

But once I get more data, I will go through all of this and find out which country: has the best conversion rate, I pay the lowest CPI, brings me the best ROI, etc.

Are you setting prices according to each country economic power? Lowering the cost of IAP for certain countries may end up in increased conversion rate in third world countries

 

[nakamura]

Are you setting prices according to each country economic power? Lowering the cost of IAP for certain countries may end up in increased conversion rate in third world countries

No, but I should definitely do it. For example, I shouldn't offer the same price for someone in Bangladesh as I do for someone in the US or Germany. On the other hand, it is quite difficult. For example: A weekly subscription costs $4.99 what price should I offer in Tier 3 countries? $1.99 it wouldn't make me much money. So far I just focus on getting users from Tier 1 countries.

 

[JoHarris]

Great! Best Of Luck For This Wonderful Build.

 

[seoarthur]

Best wishes mate

 

[Losek]

No, but I should definitely do it. For example, I shouldn't offer the same price for someone in Bangladesh as I do for someone in the US or Germany. On the other hand, it is quite difficult. For example: A weekly subscription costs $4.99 what price should I offer in Tier 3 countries? $1.99 it wouldn't make me much money. So far I just focus on getting users from Tier 1 countries.

Many small changes make a difference i guess

 

[mrmanon]

I purchased your book and im satisfied with the knowledge shared. When you're planning to write/publish the other book?

 

[Mankar Camoran]

No, but I should definitely do it. For example, I shouldn't offer the same price for someone in Bangladesh as I do for someone in the US or Germany. On the other hand, it is quite difficult. For example: A weekly subscription costs $4.99 what price should I offer in Tier 3 countries? $1.99 it wouldn't make me much money. So far I just focus on getting users from Tier 1 countries.

hey nakamura i found difficulty integrating iap with revnue cat in flutter , what resource helped you the most in the process ? youtube tutorials are all depracated

 

[WarlordYT]

@nakamura pls updaate us with last month stats , we are waiting desparately

 

[nakamura]

Update:

In March I uploaded two more iOS apps. Actually I planned to upload 4, but I was quite busy, had a crazy schedule.

Also, updated 4-5 apps. Two of them had a major update. Instead of normal interstitial ads, I changed it to rewarded ads. This almost doubled the ad revenue for them. Yes, rewarded video ads have a much higher eCPM than interstital ads, almost double.

Ad Earnings: $2600

Admob Account 1: $1000 (it wasn't showing ads for 1-2 days, because my website where the app-ads.txt is was down and the fill rate decreased to 40% for this time frame)

Admob Account 2: $1400 (as I said, slight increase cuz of two apps that show rewarded ads instead of interstitial + 2 new apps)

Other ad networks (AppLovin, Unity, Meta): $200-250

IAP: $9750

Total Earnings: $12350

Spendings: $1800

This month the spendings increased, because I tried different stuff, tried different ad formats, creatives and so on.

Google Ads: $1400
Apple Search Ads: $250
Keyword Installs: $150

Total Profit: $10550

Whats next?

This month I want to upload 4 apps, but most importantly: This month I finally want to start with a huge social media campaign.

To be honest: I haven't spend much time yet creating creatives/videos for TikTok, etc. but I should definitely do it. I think my niche and apps would totally fit for this kind of marketing.

Also, I plan to spend way more money for ads. I want to spend around $3000 on ads. So my plan is to create videos for TikTok, IG, etc. first, then see which one engages/converts the best and then I will use them for paid ads.

Additional to that, I plan to spend around $500 for keyword installs.

 

[BertIsFat]

Inspiring journey, how many apps do you have in total on ios and playstore? what are you plans/thoughts regarding the new marketplaces that are coming for ios in europe soon?

 

[WarlordYT]

Absolutely incredible!

 

[olivier]

@nakamura
A bit offtopic:

Any ideas why Apple dev forum is so "inactive" in terms of answers to people's problems?
I see tons of questions with 0 answers.

Like there is nobody on forum that can answer or willing to answer different questions.

Where you mostly search for information or answers?
For example specific for Apple development, Apple store?
Or you already know everything about it?

 

[nakamura]

I purchased your book and im satisfied with the knowledge shared. When you're planning to write/publish the other book?

Thank you very much! I am planning to write it very soon. I think it will primarily focus on iOS apps + how to monetize them + how to do proper niche and keyword research and how to use ChatGPT only to create, modify and improve the apps.

hey nakamura i found difficulty integrating iap with revnue cat in flutter , what resource helped you the most in the process ? youtube tutorials are all depracated

The official RevenueCat website has a straightforward documentation: https://www.revenuecat.com/docs/getting-started/installation/flutter

Inspiring journey, how many apps do you have in total on ios and playstore? what are you plans/thoughts regarding the new marketplaces that are coming for ios in europe soon?

Around 30 apps. Mostly iOS apps. Google is too crazy. As I mentioned, my website was down for 1-2 days and just in this short time, Google removed two of my apps because the privacy policy link was not working anymore. Its such a joke.

@nakamura
A bit offtopic:

Any ideas why Apple dev forum is so "inactive" in terms of answers to people's problems?
I see tons of questions with 0 answers.

Like there is nobody on forum that can answer or willing to answer different questions.

Where you mostly search for information or answers?
For example specific for Apple development, Apple store?
Or you already know everything about it?

No idea why its not so active there. Mostly I check Stackoverflow or Github. I just Google the problem. Or sometimes I also use ChatGPT.

 

[WIO]

AMAZING! Honestly!

Following this journey now.

Thanks for all the input!

 

[Mankar Camoran]

Hey nakamura , i hope you are doing well , if may i ask , do you make you apps availble to ipads also or only for iphones ?​

 

[LouWatson]

Best of Luck On Your Journey.

 

[followerlike]

interesting journey ! following

 

[Mus4shi]

two more iOS apps. Actually I planned to upload 4, but I was quite busy, had a crazy schedule.

Also, updated 4-5 apps. Two of them had a major update. Instead of normal interstitial ads, I changed it to rewa

Update:

In March I uploaded two more iOS apps. Actually I planned to upload 4, but I was quite busy, had a crazy schedule.

Also, updated 4-5 apps. Two of them had a major update. Instead of normal interstitial ads, I changed it to rewarded ads. This almost doubled the ad revenue for them. Yes, rewarded video ads have a much higher eCPM than interstital ads, almost double.

Ad Earnings: $2600

Admob Account 1: $1000 (it wasn't showing ads for 1-2 days, because my website where the app-ads.txt is was down and the fill rate decreased to 40% for this time frame)

Admob Account 2: $1400 (as I said, slight increase cuz of two apps that show rewarded ads instead of interstitial + 2 new apps)

Other ad networks (AppLovin, Unity, Meta): $200-250

IAP: $9750

Total Earnings: $12350

Spendings: $1800

This month the spendings increased, because I tried different stuff, tried different ad formats, creatives and so on.

Google Ads: $1400
Apple Search Ads: $250
Keyword Installs: $150

Total Profit: $10550

Whats next?

This month I want to upload 4 apps, but most importantly: This month I finally want to start with a huge social media campaign.

To be honest: I haven't spend much time yet creating creatives/videos for TikTok, etc. but I should definitely do it. I think my niche and apps would totally fit for this kind of marketing.

Also, I plan to spend way more money for ads. I want to spend around $3000 on ads. So my plan is to create videos for TikTok, IG, etc. first, then see which one engages/converts the best and then I will use them for paid ads.

Additional to that, I plan to spend around $500 for keyword installs.

Hello, bro i have a problem with one of my ios account i published one app and it's been 1 month under review ? but my other account was working normal and accept new apps so fast

 

[nakamura]

Hello, bro i have a problem with one of my ios account i published one app and it's been 1 month under review ? but my other account was working normal and accept new apps so fast

It just writes "In Review" for one month? Normally it should take maximum one day. Contact Apple.