Indeed, even with 2,000,000 or more applications on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, application development is as yet pulling in a great deal of driven portable application engineers wanting to strike gold in that incredibly serious market.

The journey of an app toward progress begins with an idea. If you construct something you are genuinely passionate about, that energy shows itself in each part of the development process just as the dispatch. The positive vitality you bring to the endeavor helps drive the app through the underlying stage after the dispatch, also.

It is important, at that point, to fundamentally inspect your idea for inadequacies and deficiencies. Examining your competition and the market will offer you important bits of knowledge into how well your idea will be gotten.

We imagine that like in some other business you should focus on the marketing process and leave tech details to professionals. Yet at the same time, you need the nuts and bolts of app improvement.

• How to Make an App in 10 stages
• How do You Make an App And Sell it?
• How Can I Sell my App Idea?
• How do App Owners Make Money?
• Do I Need a Business to Sell an App?
• Can an App Make You Rich?
• How Much is an App Idea Worth?
• How Much Can Apps Sell For?
• Can You Build an App For Free?
• What is The Income of WhatsApp?
• How do I Get my App Idea Funded?
• What Kind of Apps Are in Demand?
• What Apps do Millionaires Use?
• How Much Does it Cost to Keep an App Running?
• Can I License an App Idea?
• What Kind of Apps Make Money?
• How to Sell App Ideas to Google and Get Paid

How to Make an App in 10 stages

You can read more here about How to make an App in 10 stages below.

Step 1. Idea

Like some other successful entrepreneurship application business begins with an idea. Numerous engineers guarantee that it is only 5% of the achievement. All things considered, we can say it in another way: even the best idea can’t work without enough efforts and good partners.

Read Also: How to get funding from investors for your business

You can dream around one uncommon application or attempt to work with numerous applications from the beginning. Regardless, your fundamental thought or possibly the principle wish must be getting into the application business. Just having enough will and vitality you can break into the highest point of app stores. Furthermore, our subsequent stages will lead you that way.

Step 2. Market research

Some of the time we don’t have splendid ideas. Be that as it may, this is just because of the absence of experience or comprehension of specific themes. So if your primary objective is working with portable apps begin with researching the market.

An application is a vital aspect for everything. Indeed, even Google Play is an application. Likewise, you can discover many applications that will assist you with estimating the expense of your application, improvement code instructional exercises, statistical surveying apparatuses, and numerous others.

You should begin with understanding the field you’re getting down to business in. It isn’t the least demanding part, incidentally. For the start, you may get to know most noteworthy examples of overcoming challenges and the greatest disappointments in the application business.

At that point you can download those applications and attempt them without anyone else’s input. This will give you a likelihood to call attention to some fascinating and valuable stunts. Likewise, you’ll comprehend which techniques don’t work by any stretch of the imagination.

Remember about your sound-related also. You should consistently remain in the trends and plainly observe what your potential customers need at this moment. Obviously, with a smart idea, you can turn into the person who gives a pattern as well.

Here we’d prefer to point 5 primary highlights of the effective application. They will give you where to give greater consideration when concentrating your competition.

Engaging Design. Your application configuration ordinarily comprises of two sections: client experience UX and UI. They are about the manner in which your application works and the manner in which it would seem that.

In any case, don’t be confounded. Great structure implies not just the extravagant look. Its increasingly about the manner in which clients communicate with your application.

In the event that every single urgent capacity are effectively open and your visual structure advances to focused sound-related your application can get fruitful.

Scalability. Our reality is continually changing and your clients follow that procedures. New applications show up continually and your contenders attempt to put forth a valiant effort.

In these conditions, you should make your application as adaptable and versatile as could be expected under the circumstances. For this reason, designers must pick a stage that permits changes and adjustments dependent on clients’ input.

Good Marketing. Focus on the techniques enormous players used to advance their applications. As to number of portable applications that show up each day, you’ll need to contribute a great deal of time and cash into advertising. Your point is to come to the most stretched out sound-related from everywhere throughout the world.

Extra Value. Here we return to the idea. You will have the option to sell your application or inspire clients to download it just on the off chance that it proposes some extraordinary worth or causes them to manage their life challenges.

Partners. Extraordinary software products that are profoundly proficient and without bug originate from partners, not providers. Discover the advances your rivals utilized and find out about organizations or individuals they worked with.

Step 3. Platform choice

When choosing a platform in the past, you had to choose from the following options, Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Phone, iOS, Android. But today, only Windows, iOS and Android should be chosen if you want ot make things easier for yourself.

If you want to narrow down your options, you should focus on only iOS and Android apps. The reason is that only about a hand full of smartphones runs the Windows OS. However, hundreds of millions of smartphones run on the iOS and Android platform.

If you take a statistics, During the last years, Google Play remains a leader in annual downloads with 63 billion downloads in 2016. Third-party Android stores follow with 45 billion. At the same time, Apple App Store had only 29 billion annual downloads.

While you are still thinking of the platform to launch you application on, do not forget Web application. These have become popular in recent times and they are cheaper to develop. But, they presently cannot compete with native apps, so while starting you app business, web apps might not be your best bet.

Step 4. Development

Now that you have decided on your preferred platform, it is time to start developing the App itself. This step will involve you building a team. Your team should involve coders, copywriters, designers and even photographers.

You might decide to go to freelance sites like Upwork or Guru to hire developers or designers. But note that hiring on a permanent basis will benefit you on the long run. This is because it will save you money, and your app will need support as time goes on.

Step 5. Business Plan

Since you have made your research on the app market, and your app is underway, drawing out a business plan should be your next agenda. A business plan helps you stay focus and avoid unnecessary expenses.

You can start out by set some short-term goals, achieving these goals will give you the needed confidence to make other big plans. The app industry is very competitive, so maintaining a long term plan will help you stay focused and avoid indecisiveness.

Your business plan should be simple to understand, outlining your ideas and easy steps to achieve them. Also include your proposed expenses and how you plan on generating income for the business. This will become very useful in the next step.

Step 6. Investment

At this point and as your business plan might have told you, you will need huge sums of money. Infact, a good app development project might require upto $50,000 or more. So how do you raise the funds needed? Here are some few ideas.

Your personal savings: If you have been able to save towards the project in the past, these savings will really come in handy at this point.

Take a loan: For some, especially those how had no savings before now, getting a loan from a bank our other financial institutions is other solution to raising cash for the business. When approaching a bank for a business loan, you will need a well thought out business plan, as the banks will pay close attention to all the details outlined. So ensure to do a good job on your business plan.

Find a Partner: Equity funding might help you raise funds quickly for your business. But to do this, you need to find a partner or and investor.  Search Angelist or Crunchbase for some options.

Crowdfunding: When it comes to crowdfunding, their are different options available to you such as Kickstarter, GoFundMe or Patreon. However, to get your desired result, your app must be so clear and understandable that people will be willing to spend their money on it.

Step 7. Prototype and feedback

Before releasing your fully functional app to the market, first start by make a prototype available. This is important because your app will need improvement and not all users will like the app. Creating a prototype first, will save you time and money.

The interactive prototype works like a test-drive for your app. It can be tested by both users and investors. The first will give you feedback enough to estimate and improve your idea. If users are ready to pay and use your prototype go on with its development. You can even get new unexpected ideas while testing a prototype.

Step 8. Pricing

App monetization is a very important step in your journey, because after spending such huge amount working on the app, you should figure out a way to make money from it. First of all, think, what kind of application you want to make: paid or free. You could already notice that many popular apps don’t have obligatory payments. For example, Facebook or Snapchat is on TOP on both Android and iOS.

Some ways to monetize your app might include enabling advertisement, in-app purchases, selling products, or releasing a Pro version.

Sep 9. App Marketing

Now that the app is ready, you need to get it to the users. This involves advertising. Your marketing plans must be tight because you already have competitors. Start with social media. Get official pages on Facebоok, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube or any other popular resources that suit your product and your auditory.

Constantly stay in touch with your subscribers and bring them the latest news about your apps. After all, you can even organize live meetings with potential customers.

Create a website. Social media are not enough to access all your potential clients. So creating at least simple website will give you an opportunity to expand your auditory. Besides apps must appear on other resources like blogs, reviews, TOP lists etc.

Steps 10. Improvement

Expenses don’t end with downloading or selling your app. In all cases, clients will wait for getting updates. Did you know that most of the apps are used intensively just for a few days and only some of them last for months or longer?

They do actually. So to gain that lasting success you must always work on your product and constantly impress your auditory. Even if your business is reselling apps people will still wait to get updates from you or at least it can be your positive feature.

Also be ready to pay for a server, adding new features or any other maintenance and improvement issues you’ll face in the future. That is why we recommended you choosing a partner instead of freelancer earlier.

How do You Make an App And Sell it?

So, you are an imaginative kind of person – you conceive fresh ideas, discover new things, and overall you have a creative set of mind. And one day you come up with an app idea. The future product has a strong value proposition, very useful features, and you are sure the users will love the app. What is also important, it has good perspectives to monetize.

So what should you do to sell your idea for an app idea to a company? These steps will help you succeed in getting $million in revenue for selling your project:

1. Put Your App Idea on the Paper

Describe what your app will be about, what features it will have, what value it will bring to the users. If you have ideas about the design, app name, marketing and monetization strategies, or anything else related to your app, write it down. It does not have to be very detailed, but it will be very useful when you start creating the business concept.

2. Do the research and analyze information: Know your market and your users

No matter how sure you are about the excellence of your app idea, make sure to do the research and have the relevant data regarding the overall market, your competitors, and your prospective users.

Let’s say you have an idea to build a fitness app with AI algorithms that would pick a workout for a user based on his / her physical training experience, body particular qualities (taking into account possible previous injuries), and goals. Here are some things you’ll need to research: 

–Overall market: You will find that the market for fitness apps is quite saturated. Apps for runners, yoga lovers, swimmers, those whose who want to lose weight – there are plenty of them, available in both App Store and Google Play, paid and free, targeted on men and women.

• Are there similar apps to yours? 
• Which app stores are they published in? 
• How many downloads do they have? 
• Which locations are they the most popular in?

–Competitor apps: Although there are so many fitness apps, not all of them will be your direct competitors. Pick the ones that are closest to your app project in terms of idea, features, target audience, and markets and do more detailed research on those products.

• Are they different and similar to your app? 
• How many reviews do they get, what’s their rating, and what do users say about them? 
• How do they promote their products? 
• What monetization strategies do they use?
• How do they retain their users?

-User base: You probably visualize your users as people who are physically active (or plan to become such), who care about their health and body. What other distinctive characteristics do your users have? 

• Who are your users?
• Are they male/female/both?
• Are they children/adults/both?
• How old are they?
• What occupation do they have? 
• How do they find out about new products?

3. Create a Business Concept

The business concept should be a detailed document based on the previous two steps. This is the presentation where you should refine your app idea and display a comprehensible business plan. It should contain the answers to all the questions your investors might have.

You should clearly understand who the users of your fitness app will be and how they will benefit from it; how your project will be different than all the other numerous fitness solutions; which marketing channels you will utilize to attract people who care about their health and bodies; how you will make money with your idea.

Most often, business concept presentation has such topic blocks (but feel free to add other valuable information if you feel it’s important for the investors):

Your app project:

• Brief description of the app and its features
• What problem will it help users solve and how
• Why is it unique

Your users:

• Analysis of your target audience in terms of age, gender, geography, occupation, etc.

Market and competitors overview:

• Why is this market attractive and its growth perspectives
• Who are your competitors
• How your app is better than competitors
• How are you going to compete with peer apps

Marketing strategy:

• Which promotional channels will you use to launch your app
• How are you going to grow your user base organically
• Which paid acquisition channels will you use
• What countries will you focus on to promote your app

Growth roadmap:

• Expected number of downloads over time;
• Anticipated number of active users – daily, weekly, monthly
• Expected retention rate and how to achieve it

Monetization strategy:

• How do you think your app will make money

4. Develop Your App

Yes, we were talking about how to sell an IDEA for an app. But have a look at the examples above. Google, Facebook, and Apple invested heavily in working products. You can find tons of other cases online when tech companies bought working projects. These are real precedents, and if you want to receive several million or billion US dollars for your app, you’ll need to work hard.

It’s not only about hiring programmers to write the code. It’s also about protecting your app legally, developing the brand style, and creating a clear marketing strategy.

5. Launch and Grow Your App

The launch of your app should be preceded by thorough testing. Your business concept presentation already includes information about launching activities. So if you have that topic covered, all you need to do is just implement everything you planned.

To attract investors, you’ll need to keep up the good work and grow your app – increase the number of users, introduce new features, improve retention and engagement, interact with your users, etc.

Do the best you can to develop and keep a good reputation of your app: don’t violate the app stores’ rules, be nice to your users, be responsive to the media. It’s also important to lead your business operations properly, follow your country’s laws, pay taxes, and respect your employees. Remember that when you find investors, they will do the due diligence of your company. 

6. Find potential investors and pitch them

If Google or Apple hasn’t contacted you yet, it’s a sign you’ll need to look for the relevant investors. Here are several guidelines to help you:

• Create a list of tech companies capable of buying app projects.

If your goal is to sell the app (and not just get some investments to grow your organization), you will need to look for tech companies capable of buying other projects. The simplest way is to search online for tech unicorns, research about recent acquisitions and investments. Don’t limit yourself to your country or region only. Your buyers can live anywhere. 

• Pick the companies that are relevant to your business.

Analyze the profile of the company, read about its latest acquisitions, and try to understand if your app fits their business model and development roadmap. Limit your initial list of investors to the companies that are relevant to your app

• Find relevant contacts.

Check the website of the company to see if they have contacts of people responsible for business development or investments. You can also check out LinkedIn and find company representatives who have accounts there. Ideally, you would need to connect and contact a person responsible for business acquisitions. You can also use LinkedIn to find a necessary person through the other contacts that are available. 

• Contact and Pitch the Potential Investor

Once you have a list of necessary contacts, you are ready to start with pitching the companies. The channel you decide to use depends on your personal preferences. You can start with LinkedIn messages and emails, and then proceed with phone calls and personal meetings. You can also meet those companies’ representatives at startup events and meetups. 

Remember not to disclose too much confidential information about your app. All the information you provide should be disclosed under the mutually signed NDA. There will be due diligence done by your potential buyer. Make sure to get the professional lawyer’s support if you feel you will need legal assistance.

How Can I Sell my App Idea?

Below you will find information on which companies you can sell it to and describe specific steps to help you make money from your app idea.

How to Sell an App Idea to Apple

Of course, your app idea is so outstanding that even Apple would be willing to buy it and make a successful product out of it. But how do you reach out to them? You don’t know anybody who works at the company. You decide to go to Apple’s website and hit the “Contact Apple” button.

At first, you are lost because there are so many topics for which you can contact Apple. Finally, you find an option to leave the feedback, and you start describing your idea.

The bad news is that Apple does not accept any ideas. They officially declare it in their Unsolicited Idea Submission Policy and ask not to submit any proposals, materials or works to Apple’s employees or contractors.

There is also one more interesting paragraph in the Policy saying that if you submitted your idea, Apple will treat it as its own, and you will receive no compensation and reward in return. So if your idea is indeed revolutionary and you submit it to Apple, they can develop it and make it successful, but nobody will ever find out who is the real hero.

Nevertheless, Apple does buy successful working apps such as the voice assistant Siri, which was purchased in 2010. There were rumors that Siri’s investors received up to $200 million from Apple. So, if you think that your app has the potential to fit into Apple’s roadmap, you will need to build high quality and popular product and maybe you’ll get lucky to sell it to Apple.

How to Sell an App Idea to Google  

Android’s Google Play has about 2.5 million apps. This is the largest app store in terms of the number of apps published. If you say “i have an idea for an app” and it is unique, it might be a good idea to check the Google Play Store to see if there is anything similar.   

Google does not state they don’t accept ideas. They do accept them, however, just like Apple, they don’t pay for your submitted proposals, but treat them as their own. 

So, if you feel altruistic, you can submit your idea through an online form, but don’t expect money in return. 

If you want to make money and sell your app to Google, you will firstly need to develop your high-quality app, market it, and make sure Google notices it. 

Very often, you see the news that big corporations like Google, Apple or Facebook buy smaller companies to help them compete against each other. Recently, it was reported that Google was planning to acquire “Firework” – an app similar to TikTok.

TikTok with its format of short 30-second videos became a favorite platform for younger video creators, potentially threatening Youtube dominance. Facebook is also building a similar app for short videos called “Lasso”.  

For Google (or any of the big tech guys), to notice your app, the product needs to have the quality to help the corporation fight and outperform its rivals. Another option is to develop a solution that would help the company improve its own products.

In 2016, Google purchased the Israeli startup, Waze. It was a navigation app having 50 million users. One of the advantageous features Waze had was a possibility for users to interact and report on the road and traffic situation in real-time.

How to Sell an App Idea to Facebook

It may come as a surprise, but Facebook does not buy app ideas either. Facebook does not pay for any type of ideas – whether it is an app, or a feature, or some kind of technology. Although they are very open to suggestions from the community, they will not give any money to people who submit their offers. 

Like Google and Apple, Facebook also buys ready products, and they don’t necessarily have to be profitable. When Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, the latter was not generating revenue. But in 2018, Instagram was estimated to be worth over $100 billion. Former Facebook employees revealed that the acquisition was for fighting Twitter and Google+. 

Another famous Facebook acquisition was the messaging app, Whatsapp. Facebook paid $19 billion – an enormous amount taking into consideration that Whatsapp was famous mostly outside the US and didn’t make a lot of money.

Confidential charts revealed by the United Kingdom’s Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) parliamentary committee show that in 2014, Whatsapp was getting more popular and potentially had all the chances not only to compete but to successfully win the battle over Facebook Messenger. 

To be purchased by Facebook, your app does not necessarily have to be related to social networking. Facebook has a very diverse portfolio. For example, in 2014, Facebook bought a virtual reality product called Oculus VR. They also bought a company called Ascenta which made drones. Other acquisitions covered companies within industries like video software, fitness, and health monitoring, and team messaging. 

How to Sell an App Idea to a Company

Not only Apple, Google, and Facebook purchase apps. Other companies are ready to invest and broaden their business portfolio as well. Don’t be upset if your app idea does not fit the business models or roadmaps of big tech Silicon Valley corporations. There are smaller companies, and there are businesses outside the US who might be willing to purchase your app project. 

In 2018, 97 unicorns started operating in China. Unicorns are startups valued not less than $1 billion. The presence of Chinese apps and investments is hard to underestimate. TikTok – the eighth most downloaded app in the US in 2019 – was created by ByteDance, a tech company from China. PUBG mobile game was developed by Tencent. It turns out that Chinese app publishers learn very fast how to market their apps to the US and European users. 

Another strategy of Chinese companies to grow their global presence is to acquire smaller companies from Europe and the US. For instance, Tencent failed to make WeChat successful in the US. So they purchased or invested in other firms locally to get their gaming products into the western markets.

As of January 2019, over 300 tech unicorns were operating in various countries, such as the US, China, Singapore, UK, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, Malta, Sweden, Israel, etc.

How do App Owners Make Money?

The mobile application development services industry comes along with a huge potential to earn millions of dollars. However, not every app earns an equal share of Android and iOS market revenue.

The pricing app strategy you choose for your application also makes a difference to the earning from mobile apps. So, it is must to be familiar with all the types of mobile app monetization strategies they can go with. Some of which are – 

1. In-app advertising

While the application is free to download and use, app publishers earn money based on the interactions on the advertisements displayed within the application. This app revenue model is highly considered and found to be profitable. The in-app advertising has several formats such as Interstitial ads, Banner ads, Video ads, Native ads, Text ads, Native ads, and so on.

2. In App purchases and freemium model

The foremost monetization strategy that one considers when looking into how to make money of an app without ads is Freemium.

Here, the application is free to use. But, the users would have to pay some amount of money to buy a wide variety of virtual elements from the mobile application. This includes extra lives, blocking ads, premium app content, game currency, and more. 

Example: Clash of Clans earned nearly USD 1M per day on purchases.

3. Subscription (Software-as-a-Service) model

Another strategy that comes forward as the answer to how to monetize apps is the Subscription model. 

Here, users are asked for a weekly, monthly, or annual fee in return of a particular service provided by the mobile app development company. This type of business and monetization model is often recommended in the case of cloud-based services, audio and video content providers such as Spotify, Google Music, and Netflix. 

Note: Only 5% of the successful app developers are using subscriptions to get income from an app.

4. Sponsorship

Sponsorship is yet another method of making an earning from a mobile app. This model is usually incorporated with those applications that already have regular users, and is suitable when connecting with brands from the same market niche.

When discussing in detail around how apps make money via this monetization strategy, there are two deals to go with –

• Equally divide revenue from the mobile app
• Set a monthly sponsorship fee.

Example: Weather Channel app relies on this business and monetization model to prevail in the market.

5. Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding, an alternate funding model to consider this year, is also one of the profitable ways to monetize apps for free. 

Here, you exchange your app idea or publish an MVP version on platforms like KickStarter, CrowdFunder, Indiegogo, and Fundable to raise funds and do the needful in the field of marketing.

Example: In 2017, the Hello Earth game with a famous cat character earned USD 148k via such app monetization strategies.

6. Affiliate links

This is another variation of sponsorship, however in place of granting advertising rights solely to one organization, you negotiate with a few interested parties and place their reference links in your application. This is a decent method to increase your income if you lack a wealthy player on the market who is ready to cover your costs.

Do I Need a Business to Sell an App?

To register your app in the App Store, Apple gives you the option of enrolling as an individual/sole proprietor or as an organization, which requires the appropriate documentation for legal entity status. (So no, you don’t need a business license at this point to register your app in the App Store.)

Each state requires different fees for a business license and Apple requires a $99 fee to be registered as one of their app developers. If you’re not making money in the early stages of launching your app, you may want to wait a little while to determine when you should apply for an LLC for your app business.

However, from a marketing standpoint, being an official organization in the App Store may make you more credible to potential buyers. The only visible difference when registering as a business or LLC when developing apps is how your name appears in the App Store. Apple states:

“If you enroll as an Individual, your personal name will appear as the ‘seller name’ in the App Store. If you enroll as a Company, your legal company name will be displayed as the ‘seller name’ in the App Store and you will have the ability to add additional members to your development team.”

It’s also important to understand tax implications whether you register a business for your app developer company or not. “As a business, you want your App Store revenue to go to your business account because its tax rate is usually lower than personal or employment tax,” recommends Reinder de Vries, Founder of LearnAppMaking.com.

However, “if you sign up for a personal account now, and open a business in time, you can always create a new business account for the new business. Moving your app over isn’t such a hassle as it used to be.”

Can an App Make You Rich?

There were more than 75 billion iOS and Android app downloads worldwide in 2019, driving the field of professional developers to reach 19 million just two years later. The majority of these apps are made for mobile use, and the most popular ones are those used for social networking, so it’s no wonder some of the most recognized names in app development are practically kids. 

Some of these developers have become so successful, in fact, that they managed to make their first million even before they hit the legal drinking age.

Four exceptional young millionaire app developers stand out from the crowd (in no particular order):

• Nick A’loisio
• Brian Wong
• Chad Mureta

Nick D’Aloisio

Born in November 1995, Nick is an English computer programmer and internet entrepreneur. He is known for his app Summly, which is a summarization and artificial intelligence technology developed with SRI International.

In March 2011, Nick created an iOS application called Trimmit, which used an analytical tool to condense the text content into 1000, 500, or 140-character summary text. This application caught the attention of Apple, who then featured it as a new noteworthy application on the App store.

The huge potential of Trimmit then attracted the attention of a billionaire who provided Nick with $300,000 in venture capital funding. Using the feedback that Nick had got from Trimmit, he completely revamped the application and in December 2011, re-launched it as Summly.

One of the youngest self-made millionaires ever, Nick is also the world’s youngest venture capital-backed entrepreneur. In 2011, he initially raised $200,000 in seed funding from the Hong Kong billionaire Sir Li Ka-shing’s Horizon Ventures for his app. Later in 2012, he went on to raise a good $1.23 million from various A-list celebrity investors like Rupert Murdoch, Ashton Kutcher, and Stephen Fry.
As of March 2013, the app was sold to Yahoo! For $30 million. He was also awarded the “Innovator of the Year” title by Wall Street Journal. Until October 2015, Nick led the Yahoo News Digest operation launched at CES 2014, which went on to win the 201 Apple Design Award at WWDC for its technological and product excellence. Today, his latest venture Sphere Knowledge is raising funding for a stealthy new startup.

Brian Wong

Born in 1991, Brian Wong is a Canadian internet entrepreneur. In 2010, Brian along with his colleagues Courtney Guertin and Amadeus Demarzi, founded Kiip, a mobile app rewards platform that lets companies and brands give real-world rewards for in-game achievements.

Kiip is active on more than 1,100 apps and on 75 million devices. It sends 500 million moments of achievement-based reward notices to customers on a monthly basis through its network. By mid-2012, Kiip had raised more than $15 million venture capital from companies like Hummer Winbald, Relay Ventures, Verizon Ventures, True Ventures, CrossLink Capital, and many others.

The app company has built strategic partnerships with more than 40 brands including 1-800-Flowers, American Apparel, Amazon.com, Carl’s Jr., Best Buy, Disney, Pepsi, Victoria’s Secret, Playboy, and Vitamin Waters.

Kiip has expanded beyond the games platform and into the fitness apps like Nexercise, MapMyRun, Gym-Pact, LoloFit, and many others. Today, Kiip helps brands run more effective campaigns with “mobile advertising people like.”

2010 saw Brian as the second youngest company leader to receive funding from a venture capital firm, the first spot taken by Nick D’Aloisio. He has spoken at various popular conferences like TEDx, and SXSW.

Chad Mureta

Then a real estate agent, Chad Mureta was returning from a basketball game when an accident got him hospitalized and led him to come up with the idea of the Fingerprint Security Pro app.

Chad noticed the doctors at the hospital looking through his phone and thought about security. During his spare time at the hospital, he began downloading apps, understanding what was making people download them and why they were successful.

He then sketched his idea on a piece of paper and sent it to a developer. With no background in technology or development, his only strengths lay in the business and creative side of things. Three months after conceiving the idea, he submitted it to the app store, and the first month of sales brought in $12,000 which recouped his initial investment.

Two months after launching his own company, one of his apps averaged $30,000 per month cash flow. The income of the company later reached $120,000 in one month. In the next two years, he created and sold three app companies, which rank in millions.

Chad credits all of his success to having a game plan. In an interview with WHO? He says, “80% of business is the psychology of the business owner and 20% is the skillset. If you have psychology, you can get the skillset.” Today, Chad heads up App Empire, whose products help people turn app ideas into businesses.

How Much is an App Idea Worth?

Because there are so many different variables, the price for a mobile app could range anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000. The average price range will typically be somewhere between $100,000 and $300,000, and the entire development process takes about 12-20 weeks. 

It’s obviously a hefty investment, both in time and money. So in order to optimize your financial resources, here are the five key factors to consider when determining the appropriate mobile app development budget.

Your Priorities

It’s important that you be honest with yourself and your priorities. Finding a development firm to make a great quality app very quickly and with an inexpensive budget is a red flag. You get what you pay for. If it seems to be good to be true, then it probably is.

Let’s assume you want a quality app, which leaves you to choose between a larger budget with a shorter development timeline or a smaller budget with a longer timeline. My preferred development timeframe is no longer than 12 weeks.

Your total timeline will be longer because you also need time upfront for design and product definition. If you want to use offshore resources and decrease the price, you should assume an additional 6-12 weeks will be added to your development timeline.

In-House vs. Offshore

You are hiring a developer because they know how to execute and execute well. The only way they will build a core competency in programming software is if they have resources in-house. Unfortunately, it’s pretty easy for a firm to say “Of course! All of our developers are in-house,” when that’s often not the case.

Ask who the specific team members would be on the project, and ask to see what past apps they have worked on. You can also request to talk to the resources and evaluate their communication skills.

Although offshore development is significantly cheaper, hiring in-house engineers will make a big difference during your design phase; it will save you time and money down the road by bringing technical knowledge into the product planning.

Some firms will say all their resources are on-shore, when in reality, they may have their design resources locally and their development offshore. This is an easy way for developers to charge on-shore rates for development and get huge profit margins. By doing the appropriate due diligence on the actual team members, you can weed these firms out.

A hybrid approach can work in situations where competent, on-shore engineering teams can work on the most important parts of a project while using cheaper, third party resources for the more menial tasks. However, without a true engineering team on-shore, this approach won’t work. Technical project or product managers alone aren’t sufficient.

Waterfall vs. Agile

Waterfall development and agile development are the two most prominent methods to app development, but they’re vastly different. Waterfall development depends on having a clear documentation process laid out upfront, before the development process begins, and closely following that process. With agile development, there’s hardly any documentation before starting development. Developers work in one- or two-week sprints and figure out code as they go.

“Iterative development” is what we call a hybrid approach. There is some documentation upfront, like wireframes and mockups for key screens and functionality. But details and certain aspects are left to be figured out by the team during development.

With waterfall development, there’s little flexibility, but you know exactly what you’re getting and how much it will cost. Plus, with meticulous record-keeping of a structured project, it’s easier to improve the process in the future.

But waterfall development can be difficult since it’s hard to know every single detail and nuance from the very beginning, especially for a larger or more complex project. The timeline here will inevitably be longer.

In general, the industry is moving toward agile development. The lack of initial structure can often make the project more expensive than initially planned, but it allows for far more flexibility to adjust the product and account for feedback and changes. With agile development, you can have incremental releases at the end of each development cycle, so you’re more likely to reach your launch date and get to the market faster.

Fixed Fee vs. Time and Materials

In a waterfall structure, you could set up a fixed fee for the work. You could spend X on design and documentation and then receive a fixed fee to develop your app for Y. However, it is inevitable that you are going to want to change something. Enter work orders. Are work orders billed at the same rates? How many of their projects have work orders? How much is the original contract versus the cost with work orders?

In an agile or iterative structure, you can be billed for the amount of work effort performed. The firm will provide you an estimate of the rates that you’ll be billed. If billed hourly, check to see if they have time tracking software and and if you’ll have access to review it. And if it comes to an invoice dispute, see if there is a process in place to handle the situation.

While a fixed fee structure may seem to limit your risk the most, I would suggest using caution. Your “locked in” price can be deceiving when you account for the total cost including future work orders. The ultimate goal is to get a great product that will accomplish your business objective, but the quality and caliber of a developer who works in a fixed fee structure can sometimes be compromised.

Estimate Creation

What’s the process of estimate creation?

Who made the estimate? Does that person have a thorough understanding of what you are trying to make? Have you talked to that person? Have they worked on similar apps and used similar technologies? If the technologies are foreign to them, it is easy for them to misestimate.

Consider how actual costs have compared to initial estimates historically so you can better avoid any misestimation. To be safe, assume your developer will go 20 percent over budget.

Paying close attention to these five factors will help you get a better idea of what your app development budget will look like. The right app development won’t be cheap, but it’ll be well worth the cost.

How Much Can Apps Sell For?

Below are some guidelines to help you determine what your app might be worth. But remember, there’s no guarantee that you’ll actually find a buyer, much less at the generous valuation you might calculate in hopes of cashing in.

To cut right to the chase: apps typically sell for 12X – 36X the app’s monthly profit.

To calculate your app’s profit, take the gross revenue and subtract all expenses that directly contribute to generating that revenue. For an app, those expenses include App Store fees, operational costs (like servers, customer support, licensing, etc.), marketing spend, app maintenance, and anything else required to keep the app running.

Development costs associated with building new features don’t typically factor in, since those expenses contribute to future profit, not the maintenance of existing profit. But every app is different, and you might need to factor some development costs into your app’s valuation.

While most apps sell in the 12X – 36X range, others sell for many times that amount, and some don’t sell at all. There are many factors that might influence where your app falls in that range. Apps built from templates that have zero defensibility and fluctuating downloads or revenue typically fall on the lower end of that spectrum, while strategically valuable apps can sell for multiples of their gross revenue even if they aren’t turning a profit.

Another factor that could have a huge impact on the valuation of your app is revenue sustainability. Subscription apps with a history of low subscriber churn generally command much higher valuations than apps that are dependent on one-time purchases and/or ad revenue.

To get a general idea of what’s happening in the market, take a look at the apps recently sold on Flippa. If you’re serious about selling your app and want to get a more detailed estimate of its value, reach out to App Business Brokers for an appraisal.

Can You Build an App For Free?

App development is no longer just for professional developers. Now everyone can build mobile apps with a free version of an award-winning low-code app development platform.

Alpha Anywhere Community Edition for example, creates Android apps and iPhone apps with ease. Your apps can include GPS, audio and video recording, photos, digital signatures, push notifications and more. You’ll be able to connect your apps to popular databases and web services you already use.

Use these  easy steps to get started building your own mobile apps with Alpha Anywhere Community Edition: 

• Click! on the form and enter your contact info 
• Follow the tutorial to build your app
• Add custom app design using the guides
• Test your app on your mobile phone(s) or tablet(s)

Once you’ve tested your app, simply choose the Alpha Cloud plan that is the best fit. They will host your app, do the software updates for you and ensure your app auto-scales as needed.

What is The Income of WhatsApp?

In 2018, WhatsApp launched a separate app, WhatsApp Business, meant specifically for businesses. Users could have a verified profile on WhatsApp, create a business profile, add links to their websites and social media and integrate the WhatsApp for Business API. 

While WhatsApp Business is free to use for all businesses, it’s the API (application programming interface) integration that forms the basis of Whatsapp’s only revenue source. 

Businesses can integrate their business with WhatsApp, allowing them to send notifications to their customers automatically. Getting messages about movie ticket bookings, flight updates, confirmation of making a food order and more, are instances where this integration comes into play. 

If businesses respond to messages from customers after 24 hours, they would be charged for every message they sent. 

In a statement, the company said, “We will test tools that allow you to use WhatsApp to communicate with businesses and organizations that you want to hear from. The goal is to have people communicate directly with their banks, airlines, etc. over the app, while the businesses pick up the bill previously paid through subscriptions.”

With more than 400 million users in India alone, in 2019, WhatsApp reported revenues of Rs 6.84 crore in India, with a profit of ₹57 lakh.

How do I Get my App Idea Funded?

Unlike a business startup, where the entrepreneur knows exactly what he or she’s going to do, what products or services will be offered and how, what will be the monetization model, etc., app developers have little idea about any of these at the initial stages of building the app. User testing throws up curve balls that often call for drastic changes.

Most apps go through so many modifications and iterations that the final product will look radically different from the initial idea. For this reason, creating a bound business plan and approaching banks for loans becomes really tough.

So what do you do? Here are a few thoughts to get you started.

1. Bootstrap Your Way Up with Co-Founders

There is no source of funds more dependable than your own savings. If you cannot spare cash to invest in your own bright idea, asking others to contribute to it is a little unfair, don’t you think? Bank savings, personal loans, credit card loans, friends and family are all perfectly legitimate sources of funds when your app is in its infancy. However, you don’t always have to go it alone.

Find the perfect co-founder to shoulder the responsibility of launching a new app. A co-founder is a lot more than a friend or shoulder during bad times. Pick a co-founder based on your needs. A tech-savvy co-founder can help you design and build a prototype of your app from scratch without spending a penny on outside developers.

Bobby Murphy, co-founder of Snapchat was the development brains behind what was essentially Evan Spiegel and Reggie Brown’s Stanford classroom project. Currently the app stands valued at close to $20 billion.

Alternately, find a partner who can fund your app while you develop it yourself. Case in point – Uber. Travis Kalanick was the cash supply for developer/co-founder Garrett Camp.

2. Set up a Crowdfunding Campaign

Crowdfunding is an attractive funding avenue for startups that have absolutely no resources of their own to get going with their ideas. Even though hundreds of app and startup ideas go unnoticed and unfunded on crowdfunding sites, the right pitch can promise a bonanza for your dream app.

In return for a service fee from the crowdfunding platform and a transaction fee from the payment processor, you are assured of sufficient funds to get your dream off the ground.

Crowdfunding has various models that you can pick from. The leader in the crowdfunding space, Kickstarter, is an all or nothing platform. This means that once you set your funding goal, you better reach the target amount to get the money. If you fall short of your target, the contributions get refunded to the individual investors.

On the other hand, Indiegogo offers both flexible funding and fixed funding options, thus meaning that if you fail to reach your target amount, you can keep your collection in return for a higher service fee. You may also want to consider app-specific crowdfunding platforms like AppsFunder and AppSplit.

3. Raise Donations on Your Own Site

Crowdfunding is a great way to get quick resources. However it also has quite a few negatives tacked on to it. There’s tons of competition out there and standing out from a sea of wannabe entrepreneurs can be near-impossible for many. Then there are the myriad of fees that you shell out in return for the funding that you request.

A smart way to eliminate these problems is by raising funds on your own site. Yes, nothing stops you from:

1. Describing your proposed app to your readers
2. Asking them for a small donation towards your app
3. Offering them a gift / pre-orders of your app / monetary compensation once your app rolls out in return for their contributions

A tool like 123ContactForm allows you to build a donation form in minutes. Even better, it integrates easily with various payment processors like PayPal, Stripe, Braintree and FreshBooks to make the process of setting up your self-owned own funding campaign a one-stop affair.

4. Participate in Funding Contests

If you’re a would-be entrepreneur in the connected world, there’s no way you’ve not seen the entrepreneurial TV series Shark Tank. With over $44 million in funding given out across its five seasons, the hit show is an entrepreneur’s dream come true.

I am not suggesting that you try and get on Shark Tank to get your app funded. You should if you can, but that’s not the point here. There are tons of contests available sponsored by universities, technology companies, angel investor networks and more that offer new entrepreneurs the resources to fulfill their business idea.

Check out Biz Plan Competitions to pick from hundreds of contests around the world. You can even zoom in on a contest near you and learn about how to qualify and participate to win the funding that your app deserves.

5. Angel Investors and Strategic Partners

Many startups are tempted to approach Venture Capitalists (VCs) for seed funding. However, the fact remains that less than 3% of seed funding comes from VCs. Instead, angel investors or strategic investors are strong contenders for kick starting your brand new app.

These are not always companies or institutions. Individuals and successful entrepreneurs often take an active interest in funding new startups. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer are but two examples of avid angel investors in early stage apps.

Angel investors can offer anything from $25,000 to a few million in funding, depending on your app idea and stage of development. The size of the angel investment market currently stands at $20 billion annually.

While angel investors are easier to convince than VCs at a seed stage, you still need to be prepared to give a potential angel investor details like:

• The total amount of capital you will need
• How quickly will you burn through it (monthly burn rate)
• What is your go-to-market strategy
• How will you promote the app
• Why do you deserve funding, that is, the technical and business capabilities of the founders

What Kind of Apps Are in Demand?

Mobile apps offer the world in the palm of your hand. You can do everything from an app, from ordering your groceries to ordering a ride to the airport.

In particular, mobile on-demand apps are on the rise. Why? Simple: The demand is skyrocketing. When users want something, they want it now. Thus, mobile apps cater to a population that wants everything they need right at their fingertips, available at a moment’s notice.

1. Social Media

If you have even one app on your phone, it’s probably a social media app. As of January of 2021, Facebook reigned supreme with more than 2.7 billion monthly active users (and growing). It would be remiss of us not to mention TikTok, though, which grew its user base in the United States by 85.3% over the last year.

 We know what you might be thinking: What about all the people using social media on their desktops? According to research, 99% of social media users access these platforms on their phones, and 78% use their phones exclusively . In other words, social media use and apps are inextricably linked.

2. Food Delivery

We’ve all had those days where we didn’t feel like cooking or going to the grocery store, so we just “DoorDashed it.” Food delivery apps are raking in billions of dollars each year, and the pandemic amplified that. MarketWatch says that DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates, and Uber Eats pulled in $5.5 billion in revenue (combined) between April and September of 2020. This was more than double what they did in revenue during the same time period in 2019.

 The trend isn’t cooling off. In a 2019 survey conducted by Zion and Zion , nearly half of the respondents said that in the last three months, they’d ordered from a food delivery website or app one or two times. And the numbers have only continued to climb.

 Food delivery apps are giving restaurants a run for their money, offering a more convenient way for people to get the meals that they want. And even with additional charges and delivery fees, hungry users are willing to pay the extra cash to have it delivered to their front door. These types of apps aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. More than likely, they’re here to stay — for good. 

3. Transportation

Accessing outside transportation used to limit you to taxis and buses. Thanks to on-demand mobile apps, we have new options — like Uber and Lyft. The on-demand service means that in just a few taps of your smartphone, you can have your own personal driver arrive at your location and get you to your destination, for a decent price, too.

 Don’t underestimate the popularity of these types of apps. In the middle of 2018, Lyft was valued at $15 billion . Uber is nothing to scoff at, either. The app has an estimated 90 million active users . And aside from a dip during the early stages of the pandemic’s shutdown, ride-sharing apps are seeing pretty steady growth.

4. Healthcare

Mobile health, also referred to as mHealth, is climbing the ranks. Users are increasingly turning to mobile apps for childcare, diagnostics, home care, and data storage. In addition, some of the most popular types of mHealth apps are mental health tools, maternal care, chronic disease management, medical calculators, and educational/informational resources.

 Users aren’t just patients and other individuals, either; it’s also medical professionals. 40% of physicians think that mHealth apps could cut down on in-office visits . 93% of physicians say that these apps can improve patients’ health. And 74% of hospitals that already use mHealth apps to collect patient data run more efficiently.

5. Gaming

If you’ve gotten sucked into mindless gaming apps for hours on end, you’re not alone. Nearly a quarter of all apps downloaded are games (21% for Android and 25% for iOS), and games account for 43% of all smartphone use.

These types of apps were projected to rake in $76.7 billion by the time 2020 came to a close — but it exceeded that. The number of players continues to climb, and in 2020, the industry pulled in $77.2 billion, making it one of the highest performing industries globally .

What Apps do Millionaires Use?

When most people talk about social media or various other shopping, lifestyle or travel apps across the internet, you might think about the ones everybody uses. Unbeknownst to most, there are several exclusive apps destined only for the super wealthy, with most of them reserving their rights to select their users.

While most of these apps are free, their memberships cost so much that the average person wouldn’t afford to use them, leaving room only for those who make at least a few hundred thousand dollars every year.

If you’ve just won the lottery or you’re simply curious, take a look at 5 Cool Apps Rich People Love to Use:

1. Inspirato

Inspirato is a travel app available on iTunes that provides its users with plenty of luxury vacation properties for rental. It’s actually a luxury destination club, launched in 2011.

It comes with a wide range of properties in 150 locations all over the world, each of them offering concierge services to make sure every little detail of your vacation will be carefully planned.

In 2013, Inspirato partnered with American Express to offer additional perks and discounts to all American Express cardholders. The way they select their users is the membership fee which starts at $10,000.

2. JetSmarter

JetSmarter is similar to Uber, with the only notable difference being that drivers and cars are pilots with private jets. Users can look for private flights as simple as its with Uber. No phone calls, paperwork or intermediaries.

The app is available throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

3. Luxy

Luxy advertises itself as the millionaire dating service, similar to Tinder, but with a thorough background check of tax returns verification to make sure that its members are indeed making six figure numbers in income.

Think of it like Tinder, but with your net worth added to your profile picture for anyone to stare. Or swipe away. That’s where you’ll meet super models and CEOs, celebrities or world athletes. As a second measure, the memberships for using the app cost from $99 to $999 per month, and that’s required for users to be able to send each other messages.

4. PRIV

PRIV comes from “privileged”, and it’s an app that offers various beauty and wellness services on demand, no matter where you are. Among their services there are $75 haircuts, styling for $50, makeups for $75 or manicures at $35, personal trainers or masseurs available for $125 an hour, or yoga classes for $175.

All services available on PRIV are offered by professionals, and they are required to undergo meticulous training before they make it to the app’s roster.

5. Sailo

Sailo is a travel app with a twist. Instead of the beaten path of car and air travel, Sailo offers boat and yacht rentals or charters in several locations around the world.

From New York to Croatia, there are quite a few locations that have these services on Sailo, with various boats and yachts available to rent for up to a week, with or without a captain. Think of it like a global car rental company, only for the seas and oceans of the world.

How Much Does it Cost to Keep an App Running?

Every app has an ongoing maintenance cost once it’s published – no matter who builds it. A monthly pricing plans make it easier for you to predict how much your app will cost over time.

Once your app is published, you still have to create new content, track how your app is performing, and let your users know what’s new. If your app relies on a server to store information like user records, or payment history, you’ll also have to pay to manage this information.

Every app requires ongoing maintenance and content updates to keep users happy, engaged, and coming back for more. Depending on the complexity of your app, you can also incur additional costs for servers, emergency maintenance, push notifications, payment processing, and more.

So, how much does it cost to maintain an app, anyway? The most accurate answer to how much your app will cost to maintain depends a lot on how it was built. You can save on upfront developments costs by going with a cheaper developer, but if your app isn’t designed to scale, you’ll run into much higher costs down the road as your app attracts more users.

A good rule of thumb is to budget 20% of the cost of initial development when calculating how much it will cost to maintain software. If your initial development costs are $100,000, you can reasonably expect to spend about $20,000 per year to maintain your app.

When you’re using App Press to build, publish, and manage your app, most of your ongoing maintenance cost is covered with your monthly payment. Our mobile app software makes it simple to keep your app up to date, and we’re a less expensive option than similar app building companies and platforms.

Your ongoing monthly payment covers your app’s server costs, push notifications, and instant content updates.

Can I License an App Idea?

There’s no specific way to protect your app idea other than making sure you share your idea with people you trust. This means you ought to be selective that people you share your app ideas with.

Even among these people, make them sign an NDA before your discussion begins, including your potential investors. Yeah, your potential investors!

You can protect your app idea from your potential investors by either building and presenting the prototype or an MVP before you reveal the real app to them.

Also, it’s advisable to thoughtfully choose your professional relationships, especially the team that will build your app with you.

So, better get smarter and start by developing an MVP model.

What Kind of Apps Make Money?

1. Entertainment

Games have always been the most popular app category, and they will remain the leader in terms of audience reach. Technologies come and go, but there is always room for new entertainment concepts. It’s the nature of human beings, and you should use it to your advantage.

One thing entertainment content does best is drawing attention. You can easily reach hundreds and even thousands of daily downloads.

At the same time, an assertive monetization strategy, like a paid game subscription, is usually not an option. First of all, because the games industry now has a “free-to-play” tag in most cases.

Moreover, customers can often find a free alternative to almost any entertainment app. This is why proper monetization is your primary objective. Non-intrusive ads or the freemium model is what you may be looking for.

Just remember that your free-of-charge content can’t be solely the bait for in-app purchases. Make sure people still enjoy the game even if they stay on the free plan. Just like Subway Surfers or Angry Birds, your game should be 100% playable without a cent being spent on it.

2. Business and Finance Apps

While games represent the leisure segment, business and finance apps focus on the working target group. These people are making money, and you can make it more convenient for them.

Here are the most efficient business apps concepts you can earn with:

• Corporate messenger. The need to communicate is always relevant. It is all about providing a more comfortable and affordable way for people to chat. Enterprise messengers often come with a limited trial and a premium plan.
• Mobile payment app. People are paying with their smartphones more and more frequently these days. Bills, peer-to-peer and universal payments are in high demand right now. Come up with an app concept and start earning with the paid-services monetization model.
• Enterprise management software. Feel like playing big? Most SMEs lack quality management tools. Employee task tracker, productivity monitoring systems and organizers – all these apps are useful for the enterprise management niche. By charging companies for the office suite or for every employee in the system, you can generate substantial revenue.

Just remember to conduct market research, as this segment is the most sensitive to the competition. Even minor rivals will complicate your brand growth.

3. Lifestyle Apps

These applications cover the active audience that is always on the move. Entirely different people, significantly different reach strategy and monetization approach – let’s figure out this product segment.

Thanks to the mobile revolution, everyone with a smartphone can now have their own gym assistant or convenient taxi service. These are handy technologies, and quite a wide audience uses them.

If you plan to create an app like Couch to 5K, make sure you think through the monetization model wisely. You shouldn’t distract people with ads during the exercises, and the paid-only approach isn’t viable here either.

Consider including additional statistics and helpful features in the premium plan. More interestingly, you can monetize your data, as many workout centers are interested in average statistics to make their services the most appealing.

Then there are apps like Uber and TripAdvisor. You just subtract the fee from every transaction. That is pretty much it. If you strive to launch a food app like Yelp, you can monetize it with the restaurant owners you promote through your product. As you can see, approaches to generating mobile app revenue by category and within a category may vary substantially.

4. Education Apps

What kinds of apps are the most popular? Games. It’s simple. But which ones have the biggest retention rate? Educational applications, due to their tremendous value, force users return to them over and over again. And this is what places them among the most profitable software categories.

Education-oriented apps are served best with additional premium content, and the key word is “additional”. Don’t compel your users to upgrade. Just provide the best free experience you can and kindly suggest accessing even more with your paid subscription.

5. Music & Audio

We can hardly imagine a person who does not listen to music on a daily basis. Once again, mobile devices have changed our habits for good, and this is an opportunity to monetize the needs of modern society.

Have you heard of Spotify? We bet you have. It is an excellent example of a great music app, and you can learn a lot from it. Spotify lets you enjoy the music, create playlists, etc. for free. But what you get with a premium plan is something extraterrestrial (or at least it seems that way).

Better music quality, unlimited experience with ad-free UI – you can offer these features in one of your plans. As you can see, the freemium model is the best option for a music & audio application.

6. Tool Apps

Whenever you need a flashlight app or a weather forecast, you start by looking for a suitable tool app. These products are just useful, and this is their key benefit.

You can put your development efforts into this segment and create an exceedingly helpful app. However, its monetization is much more tricky than the actual software. The point is: these applications are rarely used more than a few times, which means that nobody will even consider a premium subscription.

At the same time, putting ads in your UI is a mistake as well. A tool app is about being useful, not distracting. Here are two paths you can choose from:

• Make an entirely paid app. A unique functionality will find its fans one way or another. It’s just a matter of a quality marketing strategy.
• Rely on charitable contributions. Oddly enough, this sometimes works pretty well. Have a look at AdBlock. It’s just asking for a donation, not forcing you to pay.

All in all, this category is a little bit complicated, but if you are ready for challenges, you will surely succeed, because not many developers decide to go with this app segment.

7. Shopping Apps

Like the other software segments mentioned above, shopping apps have quite a wide audience. Have a look at the recent US shopping apps statistics (the numbers are in the millions of monthly users).

Considering that every active shopping app customer buys something from time to time, these apps are guaranteed to monetize the traffic. And the best news is: there is nothing complicated about generating revenue from a shopping application – implementing a transaction will be enough.

Of course, you can create premium plans with smaller fees, better search results positioning, etc. It’s a matter of your creativity and ability to sell your value.

8. Social Media

Last but not least, social media apps are still one of the most profitable niches. And they are for a reason.

People are social creatures, and they won’t stop communicating, no matter what. This is what social media apps are for. You create a handy chat interface, and there you have it: the social app is ready, right? Not exactly.

You definitely know how much effort social networks put into fighting for every single user. It’s one of the fiercest rivalries you can ever witness. But they’re not fighting for nothing.

The truth is: Facebook’s revenue is higher than some countries’ GDP, and it is no surprise. As of the third quarter of this year, Facebook can boast of more than 2.2 million active users – that’s almost 30% of the world population. Now you know which apps make the most money, don’t you? Well, let’s not forget that Facebook is the business shark of the social media segment.

But how exactly do social media platforms generate revenue? Here’s the kicker: these apps provide enormous promotional value. Social networks are the perfect advertising platforms, and sponsors are well aware of it. People are just having a good time on these applications and don’t mind seeing an ad once in a while.

Pinterest, for instance, is an idea-driven app concept, which makes its ads the most natural. You look for a specific product, and you get one.

How to Sell App Ideas to Google and Get Paid

It stated nowhere that Google does not accept ideas. That’s why Andriod’s Google Play has about 2.5 million apps. They actually accept them as long as it’s unique. But they don’t pay for your proposals, rather they treat them as their own.

So, if you say “I have an app idea to sell to Google,” start by checking the Google Play Store to see if there is anything similar to that.

If you want to make money by selling your app ideas to Google, you should first develop your high-quality app, market it, and make sure Google notices it.

Here are intrinsic steps to take to sell app ideas to Google.

Step 1: Patent Your App Ideas

Google will accept no app ideas that don’t have patent. Having a patent to your idea means you’ve every right to sell your invention.

Yes, Google is a vast place that offers a useful platform for communicating our ideas to the world. However, your idea can be vulnerable to potential risk because of the widespread reach.

Hene, it is extremely important to first patent your app idea. This is the only way Google can consider your app worthy enough for payment.

Step 2: Create a Presence for your App Idea

Another step to follow is to create a presence for your app in Google places.

You can create online profiles with Google’s places pages and run ads within Google’s popular online directory business.

This can help increase your app visibility within the Google local business center.

At the same time, create a website to boost your app idea to Google.

Strategically place keywords throughout the content on your website. It can help you achieve optimum Google search engine results.

Once it starts pulling up and Google considers it competitive to their similar app, they buy it off.

This can fetch you your billion-dollar app idea you’ve ever aimed.

Step 3: Explain What Problems your App Helps Google Solves

Most Google apps have something important it offers to users. It can be saving money, users’ easy experience, saving time, or other alternative reasons.

If your app idea can address any of these problems, will make your app more appealing to Google.

For example, the Tiktok app enables people to make short 30-second videos, and it’s now a favorite platform for younger video creators.

In fact, it’s creating more dominance than Youtube as it’s very easy to use.

App idea like this can compel Google to buy it for tons of million dollars.

Keep in mind that your idea also has to be unique to stand out.

Step 4: Show How You Will Monetize your App to be Profitable to Google

While pitching your app ideas to Google, make sure you show how to monetize your app. Because there are just a few ways to make apps profitable.

And sometimes, the monetization method you choose can depend on your target audience and how they use the app.

So it should convince Google enough for them to buy your app ideas.

Read Also: How to make money from YouTube in 10 easy steps

For example, the dating app Bumble is different from Tinder. On Bumble, only women can start contact, leading to stronger, safer matches unlike in Tinder.

This two apps, although similar they are both monetized differently.

Step 5: Build an MVP Model of your App Idea

Investors are always willing to buy a fleshed out idea. Sama with Google.

Create a prototype, often called MVP of your app, and present it to Google.

Make the MVP as great as you can, or if you trust Google enough, you can release the app to increase your chances of selling it.

For example, if you’re designing a fashion app, you might program the app to search for or save outfits.

Step 6: License Your App Ideas

Finally, on our list of steps to selling your app ideas to Google to make money is to license your idea. You license your app to prove to Google the value of your idea. Licensing is similar to renting your idea because it gives you control to revoke the license at any time.

For example, if you develop a unique video software, you can license it to Google Technologies through your website for a limited time until it proofs the value of its service.

Interestingly, you can remain the sole owner of the idea you’re giving. Licensing your app idea can lead to a big payoff in the end.