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Show Me The Money?
Hi, in reading Jango Mango's resurrected thread from Feb 2017. Someone posted there that devs do not make money from iOS music apps. I wonder is that still the case? I read that Florida Studio claimed 30,000 downloads a day. If 10,000 people, like ourselves, download the new SynthMaster One in June that's 150k. Not a bad payday.
How much does Apple take? How many downloads for a dev to break even? Have things changed since a couple of years ago? Just curious, as the more profitable iOS music is to the devs the more great things we will see created.
Comments
As a few data points:
A paid music app that sells 100 copies right now will be in the top 5 paid music apps in the US app store
There was a recent music app that was featured by Apple in the main app section that sold... 16 copies from being featured by Apple. Five or six years ago, that might have been 160,000 copies.
Some of the new music apps the past couple of years championed on this forum have sold less than 500 copies total. Apps that many of you have talked about on these forums and have had dozens of pages of threads about.
An independent synth app that could sell 10,000 copies in 2018 would be like winning the lottery for most. That would be amazing (and possibly life-changing) for most indie developers...
There are apps that have been in the top 20 paid music apps multiple times, where the developer could make more money as a waiter. Or, in some cases, working at McDonald's.
Apple takes 30% right away. That doesn't include tax.
Then developers need to pay tax on what they receive. Sometimes another 20-40% depending on their country.
Certainly, all iOS Music app developers do it for the love. ❤️
What Matt said!
Great question and to clarify, do you mean FL Studio? According to Fruity Loops, their desktop DAW for Windows is installed 30,000 times a day. Their desktop app is claimed to be the most popular DAW in the desktop world.
"PC version (sold separately) is installed, on average, over 30,000 times" - FL Studio
And, the important thing here is that they say installed, as opposed to sold. There's a tremendous piracy problem with Windows music software. And, they could also be referring to free trial copies installed.
Hope some of this info is helpful. And, thank you for bringing up the fact that we should all support iOS Music Developers more. 🙏
This is fascinating and doubly so as a prerelease discussion for Synth-One, an iOS synth that I’m excited about grabbing (word used on purpose) but conflicted about at the same time.
Yeah, I’ll buy a mug and/or a tee shirt but after this discussion I feel like I should be sending care packages and new sneakers and Apple gift cards and ... the point is that Apple seems to be the one making profit, we the end users are the beneficiaries and the dev’s are doing it for love. .?? My hope is that the prices can incrementally creep upwards because honestly, the quality vs price is heavily weighted in favor of quality.
Thank you developers.
Wow thanks for the info...I’ve always wondered about sales numbers in general, especially a ballpark figure for the top sellers...and that is even lower than I imagined.
This kinda depresses me. More people should play around with music apps...
Seriously, Procreate is a top selling app. Apparently lots of people think they’re creative enough to draw (Apple Pencil?) Why not try some music?
Uh....i didn´t know it is soooo bad actually and seems to go worse the bigger the app store gets.
But it seems some developers do even better on iOS than in the desktop world these days.
I remember Beepstreet released Sunrizer for desktop and in an interview he said that there isn´t much money to make on iOS (at least what i read between the lines) but now he is back to mainly iOS. So there must be something.
But then what holds iOS developers back to release at least mac versions? Piracy? Too much support or competition.
Also the app store is still not good for these kind of tools without demos and upgrade and whatever deals for loyal customers to bind them and build a large fan community behind this forum and a few other places.
The truth is without this forum and thesoundtestroom i would have bought no apps in the last years maybe.
Also as great as iOS and the developers are, don´t forget that you can say the same about other independent developers who makes a living from it on other platforms.
Then i remember a post from the NanoStudio developer where he says that NS1 is the main income and it seems to feed him for a few years. Now of course it slowed down to peanuts and NS2 should be the next major project.
But i wonder if that will go worse these days.....
And again as much as i love Moog and other famous brands to be on iOS, they also seems to be a too big competition for some independent developers which does even much better synths.
We all know the world isn´t fair
Next thing is that there are mostly no good and deep tutorials for iOS and the community is in general very euphoric (like i was too some years ago) about everything and often it´s just not as good as i thought.
However, i wish all developers all the best and much success but you just must deliver more these days in terms of features, tutorials, content.
I can just talk for myself but while i bought a music app every few days i now buy them maybe once 1-2 months.
Even if some things are missing like more creative FX and better sample libraries we mostly see more of what we already have much here....synths. It´s fine of course but i even try to search for reasons to buy synths now (both, on mac and iOS) but there isn´t much i miss now.
It also seems that there isn´t much music people show here and on other places and more talk about the next best thing coming soon to your app store.
Sorry if that sounds too negative but i think it´s not good at all to lick eveyerbody´s ass
Well, I find this all pretty hard to take in! When I buy an app like Thor for $15 I say to myself if I had this when I was fifteen no one would ever get me out of my room! I mean these beautiful creations are the bargains of a lifetime...
Is it that most people, adults and kids don't know (like I didn't) that they are out there? It can't be that they are too complicated... Modal playing and randomization eliminates wrong notes if you must. Plus iOS is available worldwide. When several million people will watch a drunk fall over on YouTube how can there not be tens of thousands online with ten bucks for a synth? Is it that there is so much for free? I certainly have heard complaints about very small sums devs ask for an app that will serve for years. Probably from people who won't hesitate paying the same amount for a six pack of brewskies or a triple whopper happy meal two or three times a week. Are things really that f***ed up?.
Some threads show 5k views or more. Aren't these people buying iOS music stuff? Having discovered this forum has skewed my opinion, I guess. I thought at least a hundred thousand people were making music this way worldwide.
Maybe it is the iPad that is the entrance barrier. Then again, I just bought a used ipad4 for $150.i just don't get it.
@analog_matt, where would one find this type of info? And yes, I meant FL Studio (I have lived in Florida, hence the error).
There are reporting services like App Annie which will tell you exactly how many downloads and how much money certain apps make. Where do I get the additional data? We have a private group of 150+ music app developers and these things come up...
The data points I listed are simply annecedotal examples. Please keep in mind that there are also some developers doing fairly well. So, it’s not all doom and gloom. 👍🏻
Plus, yes, this forum does help a lot. All your kind words motivate me and other developers to keep pushing on and create better apps!
@analog_matt - thank you laying out the facts here in a clear and unemotionally-charged way. I’ve long felt, based on the piddling prices on iOS, that as you said - they certainly do it for love. From a business standpoint that’s all it could be - the musician market is just really a niche thing. I’ve always likened this iOS market to the old PC shareware devs, they made something for themselves and if you found it to be useful you could help support it, or not.
Another thing I brought up once before - but I think it’s easy to look at what we’ve spent on apps (certainly in my case a fair chunk of change) - but forget that in reality that for the most part this is all split up amongst dozens of devs for their one product. The only one making a consistent income is the distributor.
@LinearLineman - with respect brother, I have to disagree with the idea that 150k is a good thing. As mentioned, 30 point to distribution, additional funds to license the programming software and App Store fees, website and all that - and then the years work it may have taken to build and test the app, and the months of customer support following release, and subsequent bug fix releases. And the tax man. By the time that’s all said and done it may work out to 30k a year for your effort. Here in the US, that’s scraping by. And that’s for a single guy - in the case of KV331, there looks to be 6 people getting a cut of that.....
And once again I’ll apologize for my tendency to rant.
I just so often see capitalistic demands made here, and devs trying to come off like good capitalists - but I just see them as guys who followed a dream and do their best with their one thing. Not unlike what I take the Musician’s here to be - pursuing their own vision of the music inside them. I mean, I know guys that make a living playing music, but they’re over at the Holiday Inn or somebody’s wedding tonight playing Free Bird for the 10,000th time. Likewise any iOS dev that’s looking to earn a living will be working on the next Candy Crush. My mantra every day is respect where respect is due - and I’ve found I’ve been able to move mountains with that.
I’ll shut up now
Short answer: Yes, things are really that fucked up.
@wigglelights: if you read my post you will see that I suggested 10,000 downloads in the FIRST MONTH would be a good payday! Which, of course, shows how naive I have been about this subject, but also how much I feel the devs deserve a rich reward for the efforts required. I had a career representing commercial illustrators and, to just create a first class aesthetic,
Individualistic, and efficient graphic design would cost quite a chunk of change. And the graphics are the least of it I am sure.
But I am glad We had this misunderstanding about revenues because of the perfect analysis you gave of the true costs involved. There has been a lot of positive talk about Audiokit's upcoming, totally free, Synth One, and much praise be upon them, but now that the true facts are laid out for all to see, the difference between those generous souls and those who devote years of work to a gorgeous app and sell it at an introductory price of, let's say $15 for the first month (which might account for their greatest amount of sales in a single month) and $29.99 after that... Well, the difference between the two (non profit and profit) doesn't seem nearly as great as I had thought! It seems like they are all altruists involved in a labor of love!
So, thanks, @wigglelights, For making it all perfectly clear for us all to see... Especially for those who complain about the cost of things here in iOS land. These instruments and devices are truly gifts from heaven and those who make them angels.
I think this is import to emphasize here.
So much fights for our attention these days. Our wallets have similar stretched requirements made of them.
Not to be too political, but the system is designed to funnel the money towards the minority, so only the few will ever make lots of money from anything.
The ones that make reasonable sums of money in the creative fields usually have lucky breaks. Read between the lines of the interview with Micheal Tyson, and it’s possible that the fact Loopy appeared on TV was very helpful to maintaining his ability to spend years coding music apps - some simply won’t have this however fantastic their apps may be.
The market is just not set up so that small businesses can promote their goods to the wider population of the planet - most will never even know most these apps exist!
Unfortulately, less than 0.5% of the population is said to be interested in learning, playing and producing music:
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/27871/how-much-of-the-population-is-music-oriented
https://www.google.com/search?q=percentage+of+population+in+music
When we post a music-related video, it barely gets 50K views if we are lucky unless there are thousands of subscribers (but we still keep doing it in this poor niche for the love of it because we are wired that way and gifted). But for tech, fashion, beauty, comedy, gaming - people flock to these videos in millions!
0.5%.....so a market about 35.000.000....which half of them Native Instruments has cought
Ah, not that bad.
In danger to get flamed i think even a big junk of the people buying iOS music apps don‘t are that much interested but just live for the next fix of cheap hyped app.
Also as we know many people want everything for free and still rant over things then if they don‘t get all bells and whistles. In another forum about virtual Instruments there was just mentioned that a good free instruments slammed down their servers with 100 and 1000 clicks a second, lol.
Interest is there but not sure who wants to pay for the months and years of work.
People are even too lazy to research a bit and believing to much of the hype as well.
There was never a better time for music creation in terms of computer software.....but how long?
But the iOS market still has a lot place to grow compared to the desktop market.
I see all kind of meanings and glass bowl predictions in forums where some think mobile tablet production is THE future, others say it will be forgotten in some years. I think a bit of both might be true.
But Apple‘s way in terms of hardware and software isn‘t great anymore.
I was an app addicted myself and now i buy maybe 1 app in 1-2 months.
I wonder what people should buy anymore in terms of music apps. Do people really learn their iOS tools?
A thing like Drumbo might be something new and i see great output of NS2 in short time.
Still not very much to find about really deep app reviews and/or tutorials.
No one knows how this goes and what will happen if the market really explode and big guys like Native Instruments, Apple with their pro apps entering and also already famous brands which are here taking it more serious. Would that be good for the independent developers. In a market where it‘s harder to bound customers to a brand trough not having good options for a better direct contact upgrade paths, crossgrades, demo versions and other individual offers. There is always Apple inbetween.
Of course that has also pros for some independent developers.
Another thing is that a much larger market is not always good if you can‘t handle the support. It can be a snake to bite in your ass. Some developers on KVR were talking about a smaller and controlled market size is sometimes better for them and while some people raving about too high prices there seems to be also a balance where the „serious“ interested still buy but the guy with the 1 star rant because he doesn‘t know what he does won‘t bother....no loss in a long term.
I also think that the serious hobbyist and bedroom producer is getting more important as customer also for the pro line of developers which focused only for big studios, soundtrack productions and huge clients etc. in the past only.
So at the end everything is possible....or not.
More specifically, Apple takes the VAT (for passing it to the tax authority). So for every $ that the customer pays, at a VAT rate of say 19%, only about 57 Cent go to the developer. And then there are income tax, health insurance, pension insurance, ...
Another matter of expense: Developers need devices for running Xcode and for testing apps. More money that goes to Apple. And don't forget MIDI and other hardware.
I hopes of raising awareness and furthering ios development and spreading/generating $'s for devs:
1. Every youtube video featuring music (even if its just noise) should link back to the ios store for the apps used to create said masterpieces.
2. Do what Henry and Doug and Davey and Pants of Death and Jacob (and many others do) and promote apps and demo their use. Many people still don't know how accessible music creation is today and what is available.
3. leave good ratings on the app store damnit
+1
Even people who are using iOS devices for over a decade have absolutely NO clue of what kind of cool music apps are available on iOS (unlike other platforms) or music could be created all on their devices using just apps
Pity!
This is all part of a larger trend of devaluing art and artists. The trend has reached the point where the makers of tools for musicians (e.g. app developers) are being effected. I suspect the relatively small market share for music apps will continue and music creation app developers will struggle to earn a living from their work. To paraphrase the Willie Nelson song,
“Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be music app developers.
Don't let 'em code synths or emulate them old effects.
Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such.”