Posted on by

Where should you sell your apps? What revenue can you expect as an independent developer or start up company? In this blog series, I’ll be sharing Blacktop Interactive’s app sales across five different markets. To start we’ll be covering a summary of all paid app sales.

Background

I started Blacktop Interactive, LLC a few years ago but shifted focus towards apps in February of 2012. With the help of a couple interns we produced seven apps and have three more on the way. We have kids apps, painting apps, game boards and a recipe box on the way.

Summary

The info graph below does a great job of describing each of the markets. iOS is the only market we’ve spent marketing dollars on. We’ve found that specifically targeted ads tend to generate almost as much revenue as they cost but don’t scale well. The absolute best thing for apps is to be featured in each specific market. BlackBerry and Amazon both have request forms that developers can fill out for a chance to be featured. With Apple and Google Play, you must depend on ads or hope that they will hand pick your app out of millions to be featured. The NOOK Color is a very under saturated market (few apps compared to the number of users) and we’ve found that marketing is not required for a quality app to be successful.

Note that the BlackBerry sales are lower than Apple and NOOK but are very consistent. Apple has a VERY quick drop off from the top new apps list. NOOK has a slower drop off but has significantly higher sales, making up over 50% of the total revenue. The ‘new’ app list in Google Play is filled with preferred developers and existing hits. Good luck getting on that list. I filled out a request form with Amazon to be featured, they included our app in a mailing within a month. BlackBerry generally responds with app features in that time frame. You will have to pass quality control and have positive ratings to be considered for BlackBerry and Amazon featured lists.

Profit or Loss?

Right now we’ve invested more money into the apps than we’ve made back. The good news is that sales still seem pretty consistent. Over the next couple months we’ll be releasing more data on expenses vs. profit.

If you like our apps, make sure to checkout Blacktop Interactive on Facebook.