How to make more money developing applications?

I really like my work, because it is multidisciplinary and allows me to work in different areas. In addition, I can work from home or telecommute remotely from anywhere I have my computer and an Internet connection, two very affordable utilities today. I’m talking about online marketing, but what I’m talking about is perfectly extensible to the development of applications and software, which is where we are going to focus in this article. So without preamble, let’s get to what interests us.

How do you make money with the applications?

This is the first question we must address. Mainly there are two ways to earn money with an application: charging to develop it, either on request or selling it once it is made and the other way would be by monetizing the application that we have developed through advertising, where Google’s Ad mob is the maximum exponent today. We are going to explain each of these options a little.

Make money developing applications

In this case we refer to the already ancestral – wink, wink – work as a software application developer. Having the knowledge to develop applications and having the appropriate software to program these applications, we will be able to approach the complete development cycle: analysis, design, programming, implementation and maintenance.

But for this to be profitable, we must under request, that is, that some person or company requests this development and remunerates us financially for it, either per hour of development or a fixed price for the complete product. In this way we will earn money for the application we develop. Even today, it is not even necessary to develop complete iOS and android app development to be able to earn money, since it is also possible to carry out fixes, modifications, fix bugs, create new adaptations and integrations, and so on. That is, doing the simile with an electrician, we can assemble the electrical system of a factory, but also fix a light panel and with both we can earn money.

Nowadays, good services that put people and companies looking for programming applications and services in contact with technicians willing to develop them. Doing projects on these platforms is a great way to start earning more money by developing third-party applications.

Make money by monetizing apps

The other branch to make money with the applications, is exploiting them commercially, usually through advertising incorporated in it. It consists of developing and deploying an application, although in this case and unlike the previous point, on our own, without the need for anyone to commission us, to later earn money, either by selling it or through the advertising that is shown to users. to use it. Note: It is possible to sell an application and still monetize it through advertising, but this is a less common scenario.

When marketing or selling the application, we can focus on a more select group and usually sell at a higher price, as could be the case with various business software, or we can target a wider audience and sell at a lower price or affordable, as is the case with many apps that we find in the Apple or Android application stores (App Store and Play Store). In this case, in addition to developing the application, we must create something that is really in demand and if we have competition, we must know how to position ourselves better than them if we want to get customers.

Regarding advertising exploitation, in case we have not reached the conclusion ourselves, it should be noted that this path is slower and more laborious than the previous one –develop on request– to achieve economic profitability, since we must not only develop the application, but we also have to get advertising and users for it. But it is certainly possible and we can also earn much more money developing applications, tools or games.

How do you make money with a free app?

In line with the above, we commented that an application can be paid or free. And that it is free, that is to say that for the end user it does not have any cost to download or acquire it, it does not exclude that money can be made with it, because we can monetize it by including advertising in it, either through advertising systems such as Ad mob, or even reaching a direct agreement with a company or association interested in advertising in it.

In fact, this combination is quite common: a free application is developed and made available to users, making it easier to reach a greater number of users than if it were paid. The greater the number of users that the application has, the greater the possibility of amortizing it through advertising, even though other complementary options, such as the acquisition of specific special elements -methodology widely used in many games- or to unlock certain advanced options – what is called the premium model, a combination of free + premium -. All these options will allow us to earn more money with a free application.

How much money do you earn in an application?

This is like the chicken laying the golden eggs question and I am afraid there is no standard or definitive answer. Throughout these years I have met – I can even include myself – with many people who have developed various applications and have not obtained an economic benefit from them, or even having obtained income, these have not compensated for the amount of hours and effort dedicated to said task.

In the same way, I have met some people who have made a lot or rather a lot of money developing software, applications and games. In all the possible ways that we have already counted previously or combining all of them.

What we must keep in mind is that making money programming applications is not in any case a lottery, where we buy a template, publish and start to get rich, we must banish this false idea. In order to earn money with this activity we have to think about it like any other job: only knowledge, performance, perseverance and continuous learning will allow us to earn money, little, much or more. And like everything in life, there are people who find it very easy to get to that point and people who, no matter how hard they try, find it highly difficult to do so, each of us must find what motivates us and how we are different.

Now if it serves as motivation, you can find articles and interviews of people who have earned 4, 5 and even 6 figures per year developing applications. For this, in addition to learning how to develop an app, we must learn what ASO is – App Store Optimization, Optimization for application stores in Spanish – and how we can use it to our benefit.

Software, applications, programs, tools, apps… What is the good one?

There is no “good” option and no “bad” option. There are different options, for different markets, sectors, users and uses.

If we are targeting professional markets and sectors, what is most in demand are business management software and applications that solve specific business needs. Software that allows to optimize and improve the processes of factories, companies and their employees, so that they can be more profitable. For this we firmly believe that RetroCube is a platform that will allow you to earn more money developing management applications, thanks to its agility and versatility compared to other options.

If we focus more on the non-professional market: anyone with access to a computer, a tablet or a smartphone –that is, almost the entire rest of the world’s population– who uses these tools for their day-to-day, in tasks as diverse as communicate, orient, organize or have fun, programs, tools and mobile apps are usually the type of software most in demand. Today there are more than 3 million applicationsonly in Apple and Google online stores. To this we would have to add several million more other programs and tools not exclusively focused on mobile devices. Not to mention video games, where we can find hundreds of thousands of them, developed over the last decades, for the different existing platforms.