Anyone Created A Phone App?

[marketer14]

Can anyone tell me the going rate to get a phone app. created? Is it better to create a free app. or a paid app.?

 

[InternetMayhem]

I haven't made one but I have been wanting to for awhile now...

 

[crefugee]

I've created and launched a few apps for Android.

I've outsourced the programming work to places like elance and vworker, and never paid more than $200 for an app of any kind. These were usually custom apps of 10 or less screens, and I outlined the complete logic and flow beforehand. All the programmer had to do was write the code to my specs. I also did the graphics work for the GUI and any other types of media that was needed. My best results were with programmers from the former Soviet republics and also Bangladesh.

As for paid vs free - Depends on the market. I did one app where I put a paid version for the US, and then did an ad version for China. I also did not apply DRM to the ad version, so users could freely share it with other users. This is important in a market like China, where your best hope is that your app will get distributed on a pirated CD-ROM collection in some Beijing back alley. Talk about going viral.

From all of my testing on ad supported apps, China did the best with CTR at about 6-9% of all ads served. Quite insane really. All other markets were 1% or less.

For paid apps in the US, one piece of advice: Don't under-price your apps. I saw better sales at $2.99 for the same app with the same amount of marketing than I did with that app priced at $0.99. Less returns also. People seemed to think they were getting more for a $2.99 app compared to something perceived as cheap at $0.99.

 

[wMercw]

How much did you earn on average for each app? I always wanted to start on this business venture but never got enough feedback in order to me to invest into it.

I've created and launched a few apps for Android.

I've outsourced the programming work to places like elance and vworker, and never paid more than $200 for an app of any kind. These were usually custom apps of 10 or less screens, and I outlined the complete logic and flow beforehand. All the programmer had to do was write the code to my specs. I also did the graphics work for the GUI and any other types of media that was needed. My best results were with programmers from the former Soviet republics and also Bangladesh.

As for paid vs free - Depends on the market. I did one app where I put a paid version for the US, and then did an ad version for China. I also did not apply DRM to the ad version, so users could freely share it with other users. This is important in a market like China, where your best hope is that your app will get distributed on a pirated CD-ROM collection in some Beijing back alley. Talk about going viral.

From all of my testing on ad supported apps, China did the best with CTR at about 6-9% of all ads served. Quite insane really. All other markets were 1% or less.

For paid apps in the US, one piece of advice: Don't under-price your apps. I saw better sales at $2.99 for the same app with the same amount of marketing than I did with that app priced at $0.99. Less returns also. People seemed to think they were getting more for a $2.99 app compared to something perceived as cheap at $0.99.

 

[ddvv84]

$200 for an app? What was it a slide show app?

Anyways i am currently partnered in a startup where we are currently creating our iphone and android applications and have actually already have version1 of it open and on the market.
The application itself wasn't that easy to build. From video and picture uploading, to backend stats, to quick UI loading to.......
We have spent more then 20k already in developing the application along with the backend and the website to it.
I guess it all comes down to what you want to do with your application and how easy it is to build. If its just some simple
if and what if's then it should be easy, but when you start going deep into database integration and special functions that have
to be written by the coder and cannot be taken of someone else source, then it starts getting pricey.

With how much to put your application out for its kind of hard to say.
With ad's its hard to get good profit nowadays. Most the big boys even say they don't make
much with ads. Their value is the user base and the hope that one day they can sell for 1000% net profit.
Pricing the application is hard. What type of niche is it in? How are your competitors doing? Do they have
good steady buys for the price that they have it set to?
Also remember you can always change the price as you get feedback and your statistics.

 

[marketer14]

Thanks so much for the share. I have the same question as well, did you manage to make money off of your apps.?

I've created and launched a few apps for Android.

I've outsourced the programming work to places like elance and vworker, and never paid more than $200 for an app of any kind. These were usually custom apps of 10 or less screens, and I outlined the complete logic and flow beforehand. All the programmer had to do was write the code to my specs. I also did the graphics work for the GUI and any other types of media that was needed. My best results were with programmers from the former Soviet republics and also Bangladesh.

As for paid vs free - Depends on the market. I did one app where I put a paid version for the US, and then did an ad version for China. I also did not apply DRM to the ad version, so users could freely share it with other users. This is important in a market like China, where your best hope is that your app will get distributed on a pirated CD-ROM collection in some Beijing back alley. Talk about going viral.

From all of my testing on ad supported apps, China did the best with CTR at about 6-9% of all ads served. Quite insane really. All other markets were 1% or less.

For paid apps in the US, one piece of advice: Don't under-price your apps. I saw better sales at $2.99 for the same app with the same amount of marketing than I did with that app priced at $0.99. Less returns also. People seemed to think they were getting more for a $2.99 app compared to something perceived as cheap at $0.99.

 

[crefugee]

I released a Dope Wars clone, for example, before there were any others on Android. Put some Facebook advertising behind it for the paid version. At it's high point, I earned about $30/day in US paid downloads. This was the one I did the ad version for China too. I used AdMob to for my in-app ads, and was making about $5/day from CTR. It ran like that for about 8 months before it started to die down. Not bad for an app that I think took about 2 weeks and $150 to create.

The biggest annoyance with the ad version was that AdMob had like a 60% no fill rate. It would burn me every time I saw how many ad slots went empty each day. Now that other options exist, it is probably a good idea to use an ad aggregator like MoPub. They will help make sure you are not running empty slots.

These days, you are going to have to be a bit more inventive though with the app ideas. Dope Wars clones are not going to cut it and users often ignore anything like ebooks or photo viewers, that come off as spam. One good way to get some ideas about what you could do is to browse through Google's code repository for Android code created by third-parties and put into the open-source realm. You can use that code as boilerplate for a new app. When my Dope Wars clone had passed it's prime, I put it into open-source license, and at least 3 more apps have been created from it by other developers.

How much did you earn on average for each app? I always wanted to start on this business venture but never got enough feedback in order to me to invest into it.

 

[crefugee]

With the class of app you're talking, yeah, you're talking a lot of cash to create it. That's not something you're going to pop out in 2-4 weeks of dev. But I get the impression that this thread is more about the hit-and-run variety of apps, launched to the market, run their course, and die a silent death. These are not the next $1 billion dollar Instagrams.

FWIW, I did mostly games in the casual gaming category. Time killers, trusted and true concepts. As long as I wasn't infringing anyone else's IP, the concept was fair game.

$200 for an app? What was it a slide show app?

Anyways i am currently partnered in a startup where we are currently creating our iphone and android applications and have actually already have version1 of it open and on the market.
The application itself wasn't that easy to build. From video and picture uploading, to backend stats, to quick UI loading to.......
We have spent more then 20k already in developing the application along with the backend and the website to it.
I guess it all comes down to what you want to do with your application and how easy it is to build. If its just some simple
if and what if's then it should be easy, but when you start going deep into database integration and special functions that have
to be written by the coder and cannot be taken of someone else source, then it starts getting pricey.

With how much to put your application out for its kind of hard to say.
With ad's its hard to get good profit nowadays. Most the big boys even say they don't make
much with ads. Their value is the user base and the hope that one day they can sell for 1000% net profit.
Pricing the application is hard. What type of niche is it in? How are your competitors doing? Do they have
good steady buys for the price that they have it set to?
Also remember you can always change the price as you get feedback and your statistics.

 

[marketer14]

Thanks so much for the share. I'm staying away from game apps. Too many levels I would have to develop. Hurts my head just thinking about it.

I've created and launched a few apps for Android.

I've outsourced the programming work to places like elance and vworker, and never paid more than $200 for an app of any kind. These were usually custom apps of 10 or less screens, and I outlined the complete logic and flow beforehand. All the programmer had to do was write the code to my specs. I also did the graphics work for the GUI and any other types of media that was needed. My best results were with programmers from the former Soviet republics and also Bangladesh.

As for paid vs free - Depends on the market. I did one app where I put a paid version for the US, and then did an ad version for China. I also did not apply DRM to the ad version, so users could freely share it with other users. This is important in a market like China, where your best hope is that your app will get distributed on a pirated CD-ROM collection in some Beijing back alley. Talk about going viral.

From all of my testing on ad supported apps, China did the best with CTR at about 6-9% of all ads served. Quite insane really. All other markets were 1% or less.

For paid apps in the US, one piece of advice: Don't under-price your apps. I saw better sales at $2.99 for the same app with the same amount of marketing than I did with that app priced at $0.99. Less returns also. People seemed to think they were getting more for a $2.99 app compared to something perceived as cheap at $0.99.

 

[marketer14]

Do you have any good developers that you don't mind referring? If so, can you pm their info.? Thanks.

I've created and launched a few apps for Android.

I've outsourced the programming work to places like elance and vworker, and never paid more than $200 for an app of any kind. These were usually custom apps of 10 or less screens, and I outlined the complete logic and flow beforehand. All the programmer had to do was write the code to my specs. I also did the graphics work for the GUI and any other types of media that was needed. My best results were with programmers from the former Soviet republics and also Bangladesh.

As for paid vs free - Depends on the market. I did one app where I put a paid version for the US, and then did an ad version for China. I also did not apply DRM to the ad version, so users could freely share it with other users. This is important in a market like China, where your best hope is that your app will get distributed on a pirated CD-ROM collection in some Beijing back alley. Talk about going viral.

From all of my testing on ad supported apps, China did the best with CTR at about 6-9% of all ads served. Quite insane really. All other markets were 1% or less.

For paid apps in the US, one piece of advice: Don't under-price your apps. I saw better sales at $2.99 for the same app with the same amount of marketing than I did with that app priced at $0.99. Less returns also. People seemed to think they were getting more for a $2.99 app compared to something perceived as cheap at $0.99.

 

[crefugee]

I've only ever used 1 programmer twice. The other programmers were all one-offs. They all came from vworker. If I can dig up some names, I'll PM you.

Do you have any good developers that you don't mind referring? If so, can you pm their info.? Thanks.

 

[marketer14]

That would be great. Another question, how do you make sure the developers does not take your idea and run with it? That's my fear.

I've only ever used 1 programmer twice. The other programmers were all one-offs. They all came from vworker. If I can dig up some names, I'll PM you.

 

[crefugee]

There's no absolute way of course, but since I was never doing anything ground breaking, I never felt it was too risky to outsource it. By doing the visual and other media elements of the app myself, I retained control over that part of the process, so even if they took my idea and ran with it, at least it would not be an exact duplicate of what I was bringing to market.

In any case, never had any problems with the vworker developers. Had to "fire" one once because the guy just dropped off the face of the earth during dev. The vworker people took care of it, and helped get someone else on the job. I already had the guy's first version of his source code too at that point, so the new developer just picked it up from where he left off.

That would be great. Another question, how do you make sure the developers does not take your idea and run with it? That's my fear.

 

[marketer14]

That makes sense. Even if I had them sign a confidentiality agreement, it would be difficult to enforce it if they are in another country.

There's no absolute way of course, but since I was never doing anything ground breaking, I never felt it was too risky to outsource it. By doing the visual and other media elements of the app myself, I retained control over that part of the process, so even if they took my idea and ran with it, at least it would not be an exact duplicate of what I was bringing to market.

In any case, never had any problems with the vworker developers. Had to "fire" one once because the guy just dropped off the face of the earth during dev. The vworker people took care of it, and helped get someone else on the job. I already had the guy's first version of his source code too at that point, so the new developer just picked it up from where he left off.

 

[ddvv84]

That's another thing that i don't like when hiring application developers from people you don't know or a in house team.
All they have to do once they are finished with your application is change the colors, replace a few things here and their,
add a few more of their own idea's that will surpass your app, and bam within 1 week you have a new competitor.

crefugee; congrats on your progress with mobile app development. Good luck on your future adventures. It is a great
maket to be in, but its been getting heavily saturated by quick building apps lately just for ads.
A suggestion to you and your previous apps. If you still have apps that have daily visitors and you have already made
back the production money for them, think about taking out the admob ads and putting in cross platform ads on
any new application that you are doing. From statistics out their you will have a much higher buy/download percentage
for that new app as people who like the current app they are in will want to see your new creation.

Ohh and marketer14, remember you will still need database hosting for you application if you would like to save stats
and other information like UID's(even tho they are getting rid of them now). Can be kind of costly when you have a
good surge in downloads and users trying it out.