Based on a survey using sales data from 96 developers that market applications ranging in price from 99 cents to $79.99:
-
The average total number of units sold was 101,024 copies within an average period of 261 days.
-
The average number of units sold per day was 387.
-
The average price was $5.49, although the data skews due to the $49.99 outlier. In most cases, the price point was $0.99.
-
The average number of updates released was 3.89
-
The average total development cost amounting to $6,453. Several developers omitted development costs and most did not include their personal time in these figures. It is safe to assume the cost would be at least five or ten times more when using a contracted team.
-
On average, iPhone developers are seeing a return of more than 15 times their initial development costs.
When the top 10% of the most successful apps are removed from the data set:
-
The average sales were 11,625 total units
-
Averaging 44 copies/day
-
Approximately 23% of apps sold less than 1000 units from launch (ranging from 12 to 370 days in the App Store)
-
56% of apps sold less than or equal to 10,000 units, while 90% sold less than 100,000 units, with the remaining 10% achieving sales of 127,000 – 3,000,000 units.
Being featured by Apple is the greatest contributor to spiking sales. The level of Apple promotion reflected what sort of increase the developer would see. Areas such as “New and Noteworthy” produced slightly less gains than “Staff Favorites” or “What’s Hot.” Generally speaking, it is safe to assume a 2-20X sales spike following being featured, with the effect lasting roughly a week or so before returning to average numbers.
