We’ve had Convert for sale in the App Store for a month now. Here’s what the daily sales looked like for the month…

The total number sold for the month was a hair under 150k. Our total revenue after Apple’s cut was over $100k. The peak sales day was on August 27th with 9,574 for the day. Not a bad launch overall, to say the least.

• what it is: unit converter and calculator
• price: 99¢ (intro price)
• number sold: 149,314
• gross sales: $147,820
• net sales: $102,949
• more info: at the App Store

Stress-free

Some of you may recall that about a year or so ago, I wrote about the stress of seeing our former app, Where To, fall in the charts and the measures we took to maintain its position. In the end, it was fairly costly and time-consuming. It was worth it in terms of the profit made but not in terms of my time spent.

The way I look at it now is that even though we can likely replicate that run for Convert, my time is much better spent helping ready our upcoming apps. And it’s much more enjoyable for me… I’m simply not desiring spending most of my time tweaking Google ads, etc.

This time around, that stress that I mentioned is totally gone. I think it just comes with experience, having been through it all with Where To and later with Classics. The thing I had to realize is that as much as I want my apps to stay in the top 10 forever, it’s inevitable that they’ll fall in time.

Classics, which has sold over 450,000 copies to date, has been consistently selling several hundred copies per day even while it’s been out of the Top 100. And this will hopefully apply to Convert once it falls out, too.

Traditional vs hit-driven apps

For more traditional apps, for instance, Mac apps, developers have been used to a more traditional sales lifespan model… it’s basically, create an app, release it, sell a handful of apps every day, release minor updates, and repeat. This has worked for many developers and it’s possible to earn a decent living if your app is in the $10-40 (or more) range.

But one significant way that the App Store has changed selling software for many is that we’re now in the era of hit-driven software. It’s now create a highly polished app, build product anticipation, prepare a significant PR campaign, release the app, unleash the PR blitz and sustain it with the proper marketing. It’s proven to be very lucrative for some developers if done right. It’s worked for us so far and I know that this is the model that we’ll be adhering to for our future apps.

Granted, this model worked to some extent for Mac software, but I can only recall a very small number of apps that had success with a it. And even then, the cost for those apps was in the typical $10-$40 range. What the App Store has brought to software is overnight hits on a regular basis. We’ve seen apps shooting up into the top 10 on a weekly, and sometimes even daily, basis over the past year and it’ll surely grow over time.

It makes me wonder if it’s possible to replicate something like this in the Mac (or even Windows) realm by bringing the cost of apps down to the under $5 range. I tend to doubt it without the biggest puzzle piece being in place… that being the App Store itself and the exposure it brings to the table.

The dev skins, they be a crawlin’

I’m positive that every traditional developer that read what I wrote above about attempting to lower the cost of Mac software completely cringed as soon as they read it. And here’s where a major problem lies that’s been growing every day since the App Store launched last year…

Developers seem to be of the mindset that being in the App Store is a black & white issue. Meaning that if you’re in, your app MUST sell for a few bucks at most and it’s a failure if it’s not in the top 100. And worse, Apple should be doing all your marketing for you.

This is the biggest crock of shit I’ve experienced in a long time and all the whining by developers has been a complete embarrassment to the community.

There’s absolutely no reason why the App Store can’t support both the traditional and the hit-driven model. If you’re not going to go with the hit-driven model and do it with a full commitment, then it’s likely in your best interest to RAISE your app prices to what people have been used to for Mac software.

That’s right… I’m suggesting that if you put as much time into developing your iPhone software as your Mac software and you’re not prepared to take the risks and put forth the efforts associated with the hit-based model, then you should be charging what you feel it’s worth. You shouldn’t be playing the under $5 pricing game. You’ll still need to market it whether you chose the traditional or hit-driven route. You won’t have sales in the thousands (or likely even hundreds) per day, but it’s possible to have a sustainable business just as Mac devs have had since the Mac debuted in 1984.

It *is* possible

Just look at examples like OmniFocus for instance. To the devs who’ve been complaining about the “99¢ race to the bottom”, unsustainable pricing structure, etc, I present you with this, posted back in February:

“Lastly, we’re thrilled to announce that this past weekend we sold our 50,000th copy of OmniFocus for iPhone!”

OmniFocus is a $19.99 iPhone app. Do the math and you see that by now they’ve sold well over $1 million worth of the app. The key thing to note here is that OmniFocus is a very comprehensive app and worth the $20 they’re charging for it. And they’ve done the proper marketing to ensure that it was a success.

Choose a path and stick with it

Again, it’s possible to make either the traditional or the hit-driven model work for you and your business. But as with anything, it won’t come easy. Decide which path works best for you and go down it and only it with a full commitment. Success will come if you’re dedicated enough and make wise decisions.