Is it possible to earn money with Mac applications?

ChristopheDV · August 2, 2021, 8:54am

True, but it isn’t free (the ‘free’ version only submits to 5 sites, if I am not mistaken).

Michel_Bujardet · August 2, 2021, 10:39am

Today the notion of free has largely evolved from the historic shareware era. A demo version is seldom fully functional.

Markus_Winter · August 2, 2021, 10:50am

Why would you expect it to be free?

ChristopheDV · August 2, 2021, 12:19pm

Good question. And point taken.

Julia_Truchsess · August 2, 2021, 2:01pm

Maybe, but personally I prefer this old-school approach where all the information is clearly visible and readable as opposed to “modern” “responsive” sites with huge moving sliding graphics looking nice but obscuring the real info and telling you nothing.

Thom_McGrath · August 2, 2021, 2:18pm

The stuff sliding in as you scroll bugs me too, but a big wall of text isn’t much better. The fact of the matter is people don’t read. The main product page should be large screenshots and bullet points. They don’t need to move, but they do need to sell your project. I like SnippetsLab - Professional code snippets manager as an example of a modern site that sells the product, is responsive, but hasn’t gone over the top.

Joseph_E · August 2, 2021, 2:33pm

@Thom_McGrath
That is a great looking site. Do you know if that application is programmed in Xojo or is available for Windows?

Thom_McGrath · August 2, 2021, 2:43pm

It’s a no to both.

Julia_Truchsess · August 2, 2021, 3:35pm

I’m pretty sure that prospective users of the Bookends app do read - a lot!

Jonathan_Ashwell · August 2, 2021, 4:10pm

@Julia_Truchsess Thanks, you beat me to it, I was going to make that point myself. So there’s always going to be more textual information than perhaps is typical. Having said that, I do like the SnippetsLab site Thom pointed out quite a bit.

Julia_Truchsess · August 2, 2021, 4:30pm

I agree, the SnippetsLab site is very nice - it features all content in one informative scrolling page, but with much nicer formatting and hi-res screenshots. Also, I think I need that program

anon93744516 · August 2, 2021, 4:35pm

Hi Sebastien,

With regards to selling your app, I was quite impressed with this bit of observation and advice from @Thomas_Tempelmann from his post in the App pricing strategy thread.

Thomas_Tempelmann:

My experience from several apps, both sold directly and via the App Store:

No matter what the price is - if you divide the price by two, the sales will roughly double, and vice versa.

In other words: The price does not matter - if it’s high, you’ll sell fewer but will get more money from each sale. I wish I had found the sweet spot where rising the price would also increase the volume, though

Therefore, if you have an app that requires a lot of individual support, use a high price, so that you can take better care of the few customers. OTOH, if it’s an easy-to-use app, use a low price, which may, in the long run, add more sales because it’s popular and therefore has higher visibility (and not require you to invest in ads so much).

Also, it may help if you initially make the app free, until you have a large mass of supporters. Then ask for a small “donation” from your fans. That worked well for me with Find Any File. No one complains that it was initially free but now costs money. And even despite the fact that there are free alternatives (which may have some shortcomings).

I hope that helps.

Thomas_Tempelmann · August 2, 2021, 5:44pm

Find Any File makes more than $10k every year (for over 10 years now). Plus, by being “out there”, I showed my skills which gained me a few good contracting jobs without me having to actively seek them.

I invest a lot of time to make sure it’s as perfect as I can manage (optimize, fix every bug ASAP, add custom options), and I take EVERY customer request seriously, ensuring I keep having a top rating.

Overall, the money directly made with FAF comes out to a very bad hourly rate, but it’s all the other jobs I got thanks to it that make up for it. And the experience (both in learning to develop apps and in getting the positive feedback from the users, if that’s what drives you - it does it for me).

Gilles_Plante · August 2, 2021, 7:41pm

Oh yea, +1000 ! Home may sites uses big fonts, large pictures and full of Download buttons . . . These sites seems to yell at the reader at 6 inches of his nose, and even after scrolling the page, you haven’t learn anything.

Thom_McGrath · August 2, 2021, 7:54pm

You’re not trying to teach them about your app with the home page. Your goal is to get them to download it so it can sell itself.

Michel_Bujardet · August 2, 2021, 7:58pm

Indeed, what counts in the end is to sell. The more people download the demo, the more chances to convert.

Markus_Winter · August 2, 2021, 8:14pm

Note that it has no integration with the IDE like Dash does.

Julia_Truchsess · August 3, 2021, 3:30am

I may be an atypical user, but if I can’t tell wtf the thing does from the info on the website (and very often this is the case these days, what with me being an old fogey and all), I’m not going to waste time downloading a demo.

Thom_McGrath · August 3, 2021, 3:37am

I don’t think that’s atypical at all. What I meant was a home page is there to introduce the user to the app. Screenshots and with a sentence or two each to convince the user that the app might be a solution to their problem. The goal of the home page is not necessarily to sell your app, just to get the user to try it.

ChristopheDV · August 3, 2021, 5:29am

I ones followed a course how to promote software. One of the things I remember was the stats how long a first time target visitor takes to look at a website for a product he is looking for. It’s less than 4 seconds. Basically you need to grab the visitor attention in that 4 seconds to trigger him to read on.
A ‘busy’ website (for example with too many text) for sure loses a possible customer quickly.
It’s all about simplistic, attractive, clear info … so the less to read, the better.