▲ 2 points

Ask HN: How are you monetizing your mobile apps?

I want to release a simple productivity tool I built for myself on iOS. Of course I think: can this make a little money too. So I'm curious what's the state of HN for monetizing the apps you all are making.

Random questions I'd love to hear your stories about:

1. Are you putting out free apps first and worrying later? 2. Free apps + ads? What ad platform did you go with? 3. Did you add a free in-app purchase of just locally gated features? 4. Or did you monetize with some paid access to some kind of backend functionality (remote storage, cloud whatever). 5. Anything you wished you did differently before you launched or before you decided to add monetization.

2 comments

I make Hazumi News for iOS, a Hacker News reader (Free download + subscriptions)

- Free to download (did try €1 but didn't work well) My goal is to get as many users into the funnel, show them a good app for free, offer subscriptions for more features.

- I have a €1 per month subscription for backend functionality (push notifications and bookmarking with iCloud syncing)

- My subscription strategy is release shiny new thing to subscribers only, after 3-6 months, move it to free tier and add shiny new thing to subscription tier. Rinse and repeat.

- My app doesn't make much money either way. Subscriptions currently don't cover server costs + apple developer account + apps I use to build Hazumi but I enjoy what I do and will continue bootstrapping using my salary from my full time job.

You might be interested in RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps post, under heading "Revenue, one year after launch, by category"

https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps-2024/

I think the TLDR; of that article is, if you want to make money from an app, expect to play the long game. Apps in the "Productivity" category, one year after launch median earnings are < $50 per month.

This is great. Thanks for sharing these.