| Source | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAbsqFeeTIM |
|---|---|
| Readwise URL | https://read.readwise.io/read/01kw1f4fsnd8fexqxme7fbvztm |
| Readwise ID | 01kw1f4fsnd8fexqxme7fbvztm |
| Author | Adam Lyttle |
| Category | video |
| Site | YouTube |
| Published | 2025-05-23 |
| Saved | 2026-06-26T08:00:58.165000+00:00 |
| Tags | adam-lyttle, app-development |
Readwise Summary: Apple pays app developers 70% to 85% of the revenue earned from in-app purchases, not per download. Developers can earn thousands of dollars by optimizing their apps with good keywords and using paywalls to encourage subscriptions. Starting an app business is cheaper and more profitable than many industries, making it accessible for individuals willing to invest time and effort.
When done right, Apple will pay you between 50 cents and $1 for every single download your app gets on the App Store. For 1,000 downloads, that’s $500 to $1,000. For 10,000 downloads, that’s up to $10,000. For 100,000 downloads, $50,000 to $100,000. And for a million downloads, that’s up to $1 million. For April, Apple will pay me
$111,000 Australian. That’s $71,000. And that’s from $71,700 downloads. $1 for every download. But how does Apple actually pay me? And how do I optimize my app portfolio to generate maximum bang for buck? That’s actually an Australian term. Not sure if you’ve got it where you come from, but it actually just means get more money for your effort. When done right, Apple will pay a profit margin of 85%. That’s 85 cents for every
single dollar that your app earns on the app store. Compare that to other industries like restaurants have a profit margin of 3 to 10%. retail up to 6% and e-commerce when done right and you’re optimizing for every single outcome, the profit margin you can expect is around about 20%. Seriously, I have no idea how any other industry survives. You have one bad season and you’re set back for years. But software
is different. It’s the only industry where distribution costs are low, marketing is cheap, and you can create something once to sell it over and over and over, and apps are even better. Get your app listed on the App Store, and Apple will handle hosting your app, distribution, payment processing, refunds, discoverability, and even the hardware. And you don’t even need a team to make this a reality. You can make good money on the app store all on your
own and the only cost your time, a MacBook, an Apple developer membership, and a keyword research tool like Astro. But I can’t afford it. If that’s your attitude, then I’m sorry, you’re not going to make it and you’re not going to build it. There are people more determined, prepared to risk more, and taking out entire loans to make their dream a reality. Imagine setting up a restaurant. Your rent alone is like $10,000. Permits $2,000. And you’re
going to need some staff. That’s going to cost you another $20,000. Setting up a small cafe will set you back $100,000. And that’s done on the cheap. All to earn 10 cents for every single dollar that comes through the till. And people do it. and you’re sitting here telling me you don’t want to invest 99 bucks into the Apple developer business program, $500 on a secondhand MacBook, and $108 on a keyword research tool like Astro. That’s less than a grand. And the
best profit margins of any industry you can ever imagine. That’s how I started and I never looked back. My first MacBook was from marketplace and it had a broken screen, but it didn’t matter. All I needed was to release my first few apps and get the cycle started. I’m begging you, start thinking about the upside and stop thinking about the initial cost. Next, we look at how Apple pays developers and how to optimize your app to generate meaningful revenue. This
game is all about distribution. Build your app, get it installed on people’s iPhones. That’s it. The easiest way to do that is to target the right keywords. Remember when I talked about earlier about the setup costs needing a keyword research tool? It’s literally all you need to do to do your market research, find the keywords that are high in popularity, and have low competition. Get this right and it’s free marketing for the life of your app. No, seriously, doesn’t cost you anything. You get your
app listed on the app store for a keyword that gets continuous downloads, continuous traffic, and you will never pay a dollar for marketing again. The App Store simply takes care of it, but you need to get it right. I’ve done a bunch of videos on this and I’ll put some of my favorites in the description below. If you’re a bit more adventurous or perhaps your app is a little bit more saturated in the search results, a great way to get more downloads right now is short for content. Think Tik Tok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. Simply
post content every day to promote your app, but be sure not to promote your app in the video that’s promoting your app. I know, confusing, right? A format that works well at the moment is a viral hook with a person’s reaction followed by a demonstration of the app itself. Do this every day. It costs nothing except your time. If you want to learn more about creating viral videos that get downloads to your app, let me know. I can do an entire video series on what works best.
It’s a great way to get people using your app and it costs nothing except the time to create the videos. Congratulations, your app is getting downloads and it’s costing you nothing to get those downloads. Now it’s time to get paid. But how? Simply annoy your customers. Annoy your customers to the point where it’s more convenient for them to pay to stop being annoyed by your annoying pay walls and annoying tactics. No, seriously. This is the app
industry in a nutshell. And this is all we’ve got. This is the best way that we’ve got to monetize these apps. And it’s kind of weird when you think about it. Imagine going to the restaurant, needing to complete a 3inut onboarding flow, then finding out you can’t even see the entire menu because half the items are blurred until you sign up for a premium menu. Then you see what’s on the menu once you provide your credit card details, name, and contact details.
Yeah, that would be kind of annoying. Software just hits different. Don’t ask me why. I don’t make the rules. The best way to monetize your app is simply to add inapp purchases. Add payw walls, especially to the onboarding flow. Up to 75% of your trial signups will come directly from the onboarding flow. If you’re not capturing these signups, you’re only earning 25% of the app’s potential. I’ve got a whole video on this. I’ll put a link in the description
below. When I upgraded my payw wall, revenue went from $10,000 a month to $70,000 a month pretty much overnight. Inapp purchases and weekly subscriptions have now become the norm in our industry. Only a few decades ago, the idea of paying for a subscription to simply use the software was completely unheard of. Instead, apps were sold with a lifetime purchase price. That would mean you would pay for the app before you ever used it and would cost around a dollar or $2 depending on the app itself
and I guess you would have to make a lot of downloads to have any sort of meaningful revenue from that business model. Now people are prepared to pay a subscription for software and that’s kind of a good thing for us app developers. It means a lifetime value of a customer is better, profit margins are better and revenue is well better. The pricing model that works for me, $7.99 per week with a 3-day free trial, $24.99 a year with no free trial. Most people
opt for the 3day free trial and continue to use the app on a weekly basis. Then, if they’re sensible, they will switch over to an annual plan, but 95% of subscribers stay on a weekly plan with only 5% of users opting for the annual plan. We’ve built the app. We’ve added annoying payw walls. We’ve set up inapp purchases. So, how exactly does Apple pay us? Apple doesn’t actually pay you for each download exactly. They will pay
you 70 to 85% of all revenue that you generate through the inapp purchases. When you first create your Apple developer account, you will automatically start paying 30% commission to Apple. And you can reduce this to 15% by simply signing up for the Apple small developer program. To be eligible for the program, you need to have revenue under $1 million per year. So, chances are you’ll get approved. Application into the program is a manual process, so you kind of need to know the
program exists and you need to fill in all of the paperwork to be accepted. I’ll put a link in the description below. It took me a few months to be approved by Apple, but once I was approved, I all of a sudden just started to earn more money and Apple was taking less of a cut. It was approved rather painlessly. Apple pays developers within 33 days after the end of the first month. You only get paid once a month, which is kind of annoying. If you’re used to payment processing like Stripe, if you run a SAS or a website, being
paid once a month might get a little bit annoying. But Apple does have really nice reporting which gives you a proper insight as to what’s happening with your app portfolio, what’s happening with your business, and how much you can expect in your next payment.