How to make money from developing android apps

Have a great idea for app for senior citizens. Image source: Sensotower Developing a free mobile app is definitely the right business strategy. Subscriptions generate the majority of these apps’ revenue. No matter how good your app is and what monetization methods you use, you may still fail to attract customers without a clear app packaging. At the meantime, mobile applications offer a new opportunity to collect email addresses. This will lead to greater profits and help keep your customers satisfied.

How the mobile app business can be profitable for an app developer

The ,oney market is bigger how to make money from developing android apps it’s ever hoq and, while it seems there’s a lean towards free apps as opposed to paid-for products, there’s still plenty of money to be made in the market. We’ll come into this article assuming you have a little pre-existing knowledge of coding and can work your way around a portable language like Xcode or Unity — it’s a little outside our scope to teach you how to program the things. Instead, we’re looking at ways you can exploit your skills, get yourself in the right places, and bring androi some cash from the potentially lucrative handheld software market. Apple’s scheme, the Developer Program, is not free, presumably to stop potentially awful apps from having to be scrutinised by its team of testers. Both, once you’re registered, will give you access to their respective in-app payment engines, allowing you to accept money for upgrades from your customers. What you develop is highly important.

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But today, with the emergence of so many new mobile platforms and their different versions; also with the concept of cross-platform formatting of apps getting more popular; the field of mobile app development becomes a veritable treasure-trove for the developer to make a decent sum of money every month, by way of creating mobile applications. In this article, we discuss ways and means you can use to make the maximum money from mobile app development. Mobile apps have now emerged as one of the easiest and best ways to advertise and sell products and services, encourage social sharing of information and generally encourage mobile users towards developing and maintaining brand loyalty. The mobile app development market is vast and offers great scope for app developers and companies to succeed beyond their expectation, by making very little initial investment. Angry Birds is one great game app that has maintained its immense popularity among the masses. While many other such apps have been successful, this one has emerged a top-selling app , by making the maximum amount of revenue for its creator, Rovio. There are several thousands of popular apps out there, which have been downloaded millions of times by users.

Paid vs Free Apps

The app market is bigger than it’s ever been and, while it seems there’s a lean towards free apps as opposed to paid-for products, there’s still plenty of money to be made in the market. We’ll come into this article assuming you have a little pre-existing knowledge of coding and can work your way around a portable language like Xcode or Unity — it’s a little outside our scope to teach you how to program the things.

Instead, we’re looking at ways you can exploit your skills, get yourself in the right places, and bring in some cash from the potentially lucrative handheld software market. Apple’s scheme, the Developer Program, is not free, presumably to stop potentially awful apps from having to be scrutinised by its team of testers.

Both, once you’re registered, will give you access to their respective in-app payment engines, ma,e you to accept money for upgrades from your customers. What you develop is highly important. If you’re a one-man army, it’s unlikely you’re going to be developing the next big mobile game. So pick a niche instead; an area where someone might need an app so much that they’re willing to pay for it.

Search the app stores for competing apps and see what they’re able to charge. Also consider directing your application towards the highest earning app categories. According to VisionMobile, the top how to make money from developing android apps of developer earnings in came from those developing enterprise, business and health apps — not, perhaps, entirely surprising, considering the budgets available to IT departments and executives purchasing apps to increase productivity appd connectivity.

Let’s take a glance at Nintendo’s recent hit, Super Mario Run. It’s downloadable for free, and you get three levels to play as much as you’d like. Had Nintendo put that price on the app itself, there’s a good chance it would have fallen flat on its face — many mobile users are completely unwilling to part with cash until they know that what they’re buying is quality software.

Instead, Nintendo released a free app with, essentially, a paywall. Since users were already hooked, they were more than willing to stump up the amdroid. That ‘free’ tag, even if you include in-app purchases, has a huge amount of power. Get the users in before you ask for their money, and give them the best experience you can without them having to pay.

If you’re holding back features, make them non-essential but nice to have, so that your most dedicated users cough up. If you have an app on a store, you’re going to get feedback from users. Often, this will be unnecessarily harsh feedback. But don’t be disheartened, as this is the natural course of any online feedback mechanism.

Read them, and respond to those who have had problems running your app. Fix problems as you see. Fight fires as they pop up — developinf not going to be fun.

The reason you need to be responsive should be reasonably obvious — users browsing app stores will pick up the apps they see with the highest rating. You need to do everything you can to get as close to five stars as possible, and that means treating your users well and fixing people’s issues. It’s not just feedback that affects your download numbers, of course — you can be as responsive as you like, but if you don’t have those star ratings, you’re not getting. So include an option in your app devloping help increase your visibility and move you through the algorithms of these app stores.

Striking a balance between annoying your users and asking them very nicely to rate your product is a tough one. Some apps use pop-ups, others joney notices, or some tuck their rating suggestions away on a settings screen only likely to be visited by the users that matter.

There’s value in the latter option, certainly — while the former couple developjng get you a higher volume of ratings, squirrelling the option away restricts your star rating to the dedicated.

Don’t want to ask your users for money? Want to ap;s a little extra money on the side? Depending on the type of app you’re using, you have a few potential options for hosting ads. Many developers go for a banner ad, consistently displayed on screen. This is a minor annoyance — perhaps not enough to turn off a user, but enough to convince them to chip in a small in-app purchase to get rid of it.

Other apps may be better suited to video ads, the watching of which can earn the user a small perk. Whichever you choose, make sure you sign up with one or more ad networks, ideally those which pay decent rates and whose tools are easy to use. Google offers its own mobile ad network, AdMob, which also includes a feature called Mediation — this allows deevloping to selectively serve ads from a number of networks in order to maximise your hit rate, and should work on both iOS and Android.

TechRadar pro IT insights for business. CES Video. Register with the app stores To publish software on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, you’ll need to be a fully registered member. Pick a product What you develop is highly important. Be responsive If you have an app on a store, you’re going to get feedback from users. Include a rating system It’s not just feedback that affects your download numbers, of course — you can be as responsive as you like, but if you don’t have those star ratings, you’re not getting.

Host ads Don’t want to ask your users for money? See more how-to articles.

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The upgraded subscription comes with other bonus features like a location change, rewinds, and an experience without advertisements. I used both banner and interstitial ads in my apps. An outcome of which is that they fail to achieve their goal. We recommend that you add some text to your screenshots, describing some functions of your application. Excellent user for first time app developer seeking ways to monetize free app. So yes, your free version can earn from ads and users can get rid of those ads by purchasing the premium version. For free apps with restricted content or features available for a limited time, the user can pay a subscription fee to get a full access and unlock it. How many users will find your free mobile app? How can I give them a rough quote or any advice?

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