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$250 to $1,000 a Month with Just 15 Downloads

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App Masters12:27Open on YouTube
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The bottom line

A longer paywall with social proof and a features table, plus yearly and lifetime plans only, raised Penman's revenue from about $250 to $1,000 a month at 15 downloads a day. Fixing what happens after install makes each download worth more.

Key takeaways

  • Revenue fell while downloads stayed high, so the problem was after the install. 2:02
    • Revenue sat at $400 to $500 a month for about 2 years, then hit an all-time low of $270 with almost 500 downloads.
  • Event tracking shows where users drop off. 2:33
    • Firebase events showed users skipping some pages and opening the paywall without tapping purchase.
    • Some users hit internet errors at the moment of purchase and could not pay.
  • A long paywall with proof and a features table converts better than a short one. 5:36
    • The old page had a few premium features and two buttons. It just didn't work.
    • The new page opens with a borrowed Stanford finding that speech to text is three times faster than typing.
    • It then adds package prices, a premium feature list, a note on 50,000 downloads and Apple features, and a basic versus premium table.
  • Selling only yearly and lifetime plans, with a deal timer, moved buyers to lifetime. 9:04
    • Adding lifetime in June was not enough. The jump came after the new page in July and August.
    • August had fewer downloads than before but more revenue, and most buyers took lifetime.
    • A 15 minute countdown and a "deal ends" note add urgency without being overbearing.
  • A product that converts lets a small app afford paid installs. 10:00
    • Revenue per download tells you how much you can pay per install, for example up to $1.
    • Earlier Apple Search Ads gave impressions but no results, because the product was not ready.

If you want to make more money from your apps, all you got to do is really focus on the post install.

Steve P. Young

Chapter summaries

0:00 Post-install work beats more downloads

An app earns more by fixing what installed users see than by chasing more installs.

  • Installed users are the warmest leads, so the post-install experience is the place to work. 1:17
    • Steve says these users arrive warm, hot, and ready.
    • Sobhan Eskandari, who makes Penman, changed three things: onboarding screens, the paywall and the pricing plans.
    • The case came from a community member who emailed his results after following the channel.
    • The revenue slump is what pushed him to start watching the channel's videos.

2:26 A short paywall was the wrong bet

Cutting the paywall short to convert fast backfired, and a longer page was the fix.

  • He dropped the monthly plan in June and tested only yearly and lifetime. 3:22
    • This was a test, made while the old page was still short.
    • Lifetime went in at about the same time as the new page.
    • He had heard that long premium pages raise conversion, so he decided to try one.
    • The new page was shown side by side with the old one, and it follows the layout of a well-known app's paywall.
  • He assumed people would not scroll, and that assumption was wrong. 3:34
    • He wanted to grab users fast with a short page.
    • With no testimonials or features table, it just didn't work.
    • The Stanford speech-to-text finding went in the header as a testimonial.
    • Packages with the new lifetime option came right after it.

6:14 What goes on the pricing page

A pricing page converts when it borrows proof it lacks and shows exactly what free users get.

  • Borrowed research can stand in for missing social proof 6:58
    • With no proof of your own, search for a scientific finding on your topic.
    • A pink noise app used one: scientifically proven to improve memory.
    • Pricing sits up front, with reviews and proof below it. These are the marks of a high converting page.
    • The page ends with frequently asked questions and the prices once more.
  • A generous free plan protects the app's rating 7:33
    • Basic gives unlimited notes and notebooks.
    • Early limits drew negative App Store reviews.
    • Free speech to text was offered for a period to calm those reviews.
    • People want to see what is free and what is premium. The table answers that.

8:57 From a working product to a paid install budget

Once the page converts, revenue per download sets what ads can cost, and onboarding leads users to it.

  • A known revenue per download turns ad buying into a target 10:00
    • You aim for a set cost per install instead of any traction.
    • The figure is counted after Apple takes its share.
    • The earlier ad test failed because the product was not ready. Impressions did not convert.
    • Fixing the product with only 15 downloads a day is what makes paying per install affordable.
  • Onboarding that tells a short story prepares users for the paywall 11:17
    • The slides run: keep your thoughts together, speak them, stay in notebooks, sync everywhere.
    • The last slide says Start writing.
    • The countdown timer, then the price returns to a higher one, such as $49.
    • The "deal ends" message says prices will rise back if you wait.

In the growth library

Sobhan Eskandari (host: Steve P. Young), Indie developer of the Penman notes and speech-to-text app; host is founder of App Masters. An indie app went from a low of $270 a month to about $1,000 a month with only about 15 downloads a day by fixing what happens after install: event tracking, a longer paywall and simpler plans. The lesson is that fixing post-install conversion can beat chasing more downloads.

Lessons that draw on this:

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript351 lines
0:00

Coming up is a case study that proves you don't need more downloads to make more money. Stay tuned. What is up App Nation? It is Steve P. Young, founder of appmasters.com, the YouTube channel app marketing agency that's going to help you grow your apps faster, better, and cheaper. Here's a case study that really proves why I feel like we are one of the best channels and agencies out there. It's because we have a community that reports back and keeps me honest on what's really working in the app space. And in this video, this app developer went from $250 a month to $1,000 a month with just 15 downloads.

0:49

1 5 a day. That's it. He's going to show you exactly what he did by following our YouTube channel. He's going to show you how he optimized his onboarding screens, how he optimized his paywall, and lastly, how he optimized and tested his pricing plans. I love this case study cuz it proves what I've been saying all along, that if you want to make more money from your apps, all you got to do is really focus on the post install.

1:20

What people are doing after they've installed your app, because they're coming in warm, hot, and ready. Enjoy. Okay, here are the numbers. So, thank you so much for putting this together and being so open and honest. And I think this is how I feel like is the App Masters family, right? Like if you've got a case study and you've got some wins, email me, just like Sopan did, and I said, "Hey, when I got the email Sopan, I was like, oh my god, this is so cool." And I was like, "You got to come on to do this." And so, here are the numbers. Let's break it down for me.

1:48

Like, what was happening in each month? Uh so, bef- before this, uh I wanted to say that we were generating around of 400 to 500 bucks a month. This this has been the average past 2 years maybe, but around June I started to notice that our revenue is decreasing, you know. It's actually hit the all-time low of 270 bucks in a month, which was the all-time low. Our even we had like almost 500 downloads, but uh our revenue took a hit. And that was that was the time that I really thought that things need to change, and that was exactly the time which I started watching App Masters video, you know. It all started you actually started from from analyzing Firebase. I'm using Firebase in order to analyze everything in my app, and I I started implementing Firebase events. By using Firebase events, I found out that people are not actually opening some pages, or even though they are opening the page, they

2:46

are not clicking on the purchase button for instance, you know. Aside from that, many of many of our users are even having internet issues, you know. I get the user to this point that they click the purchase button after this all this effort, but they somehow face some internet issue that the purchase cannot be done. I found all these small insights implementing Firebase events. So, I encourage everyone to use either Firebase events or any other sort of event tracking system they know, but I definitely recommend using it. So, that's when I when I found out that things need to change in a app needs some modification, definitely needs some modifications. So, it was around June that I decided to for a test remove the monthly subscription and migrate to only yearly and only lifetime. I had this previous design which was short actually, and during those time I thought people people don't want to

3:41

scroll and maybe they don't want to spend so much time in premium page, so I just need to grab them fast to make a small premium page to get them and and convert them to paid users fast, and that's where I was wrong, actually. Just showing in a short premium page with no much testimonials or features tables, that just didn't work. That just didn't work. And I was deceived program about long premium pages and how they increase the conversion rate. So, I decided to give it a go.

4:14

Hold on. Hold on one second. All right. You're going to You're jumping ahead. I I like it. Okay. Hold on 1 second, and here's what I want to do. I think we kind of gave it away already, but here is what I really wanted to do was show it side by side here. Oops. Exactly. There. Okay. So, you had a Look, spoiler alert. Someone kind of mentioned it, but this is his first page. You got And I guess you got rid of the monthly, but I don't have the yearly and the lifetime offer, but it looked very similar to this, I'm assuming. And then you went to So, anyways, spoiler alert. We've been talking about this a lot, and I really love that, you know, when I looked at your page, it sort of broke down all the elements kind of puts there for that Super Mama. The It looks very similar to what they had as well, and so I love the the way you did it, but this is I wanted to play a game with everybody just to

5:08

make sure everybody played along, but yes, spoiler alert. This is the Go ahead. You can go on. Sorry. So, the A design is the old design, which was pretty short, not much details there on the either for premium features and two simple buttons of either monthly or yearly. This was the initial design, and it didn't actually convert much people to paid users. It didn't earn much revenue. So, I decided to change and switch to the second one, which is the B design. And I did about I did some small research back then, and I found out that uh a There was this research done in in Stanford using a speech to text app versus just normal keyboard type of writing and they found out that if you use an speech to text app, your writings are written three times faster. So, I kind of use that as an a testimonial there in the header to like give that big show that you you will write three times faster if you use Penman. Right

6:06

after that, I I I showed our packages which I introduced lifetime in that almost in that era and the yearly option. So, this was just these two simple plans and after that a place to show the premium features, what are the our premium features and a testimonial right below that that we all we almost have now around 50,000 users who are using Penman everyday but not of course not everyday but they they have downloaded Penman so far. So, I just want to point it out that we have been featured by Apple, we've been featured by these websites and right after that right after that a features table, what you will get in the basic plan, what you will get in the premium plan.

6:49

All right, so I want to break this down a little bit. So, you know, we we've recommended this. I love that you borrowed, right? And that's what I've done, too. If you don't have social proof, this headline he borrowed it. You know, do some research, go on Google, literally put in like, "Hey, how this might affect" and for me it was like pink noise. I found something where it was scientifically proven that pink noise improves memory. So, I was like, "All right, scientifically proven to improve memory, right?" Love the the pricing page up front and center and we'll take a look at the app itself and how it shows up and I love the social proof. These are all elements of a really high converting pricing page. The one thing I want to ask about with you is the basic, why go unlimited? Why not like limit it to just like three or four? Why go unlimited here on the basic plan? Unlimited notes and notebooks.

7:33

The thing is during our first days of releasing Penman, we got a lot of negative reviews on App Store that why why you know free features are not that much so we had to kind of compromise this you know and give people more free features to kind of avoid those and negative reviews you know it was hurting us so we decided to give people a bit more free features and we even gave people free speech to text for a period of time you know.

8:04

Oh wow. I love how it breaks it down. I think this is one of the most important features is because people want to understand what can I get for free and what are the premium features as well and then I love the weight of everything. Are you a designer too or is your wife the designer? Who put this together? I did design this app and page but I don't consider myself a really designer but it's just Yeah. some hobby. Again use user reviews. I love the layout here and then again the pricing page one more time and how some frequently asked questions as well. Hey what's this deal ends? So tell me about this I noticed that.

8:38

Uh yeah this is actually with this we implemented our in our previous page too. I just want to give people that feelings that this deal might end soon and if you don't rush you will lose it and the prices will go will increase back to their previous price you know. These ones right here? Exactly. Yeah that's awesome. All right so when did this new page come about? Let's go back to this data. I believe it was around August. In June August you launched the new page?

9:07

Exactly it was around almost around August in June we added lifetime package but it wasn't enough you know it wasn't getting people converted. So in in July around July and August we changed the premium page and things started to show really. Got it. So this is where you started noticing the jump. You're like hey we don't have the the life the total sales but this is where you're noticing the jump the yearly jump the lifetime jump you remove the monthly and you notice like you know way more revenues here in this. And then, you know what I really liked about this, too? Granted, you know, I think this is all new Well, there's some probably some old ones, too. But, look at September. Like, you had less downloads in August, but more revenues. That's really cool.

9:51

Yeah. That that that was just came to my surprise. It looks like most people are now buying the lifetime offer. Exactly. Exactly. I put all the proceeds, and I wanted to look at downloads per revenue per downloads. This is the number I tend to look at, right? Like, I'm like, "Hey, how much can you afford to pay per install?" Now, Sopan knows that if you wanted to run Apple Search Ads, he can pay up to, let's say, you know, after Apple's taken all that stuff. Well, let's say you want to go a dollar, a dollar per download. Now, you have a cost per install in mind and a goal in mind, rather than just trying to throw any type of installs and try to get just any type of traction. You fixed the product with just 15 downloads, and now, because of fixing the product, now you can afford to potentially pay per download Exactly.

10:35

because you know it's going to convert pretty well. Exactly. That that was actually what I was looking for, you know? I I tried implementing Apple Search Ads for previ- for a short period of time, but I wasn't getting the results, because the product wasn't ready, you know? Even though I got impressions, but well, when the product isn't ready, those impressions not converted really. Right. Yeah, right. I like it, man.

10:57

Well, thanks for sharing all that with us. Let me I want to show off your app, all right? Let's You walk us through any type of changes that you made before. Are you the thinking type? Penman helps you keep your thoughts, ideas, and notes together in all the same way. Cool. Speak your thoughts. Stay organized in notebooks. Sync across all your devices. Awesome. Start writing. Now, did you How did you come up with these as the main topics that you want to cover on the onboarding sequence?

11:24

Uh if if you follow the sequence, it's kind of telling a very short story right from the start, and at the end, it tells you now start writing. This is it's a very short story that how Penman how this app can help you if if you start from the first slide. So done and then you show the pricing page. Love it. You have a little countdown. So this I love that you've added the little countdown. So after 15 minutes I'm going to assume this goes up to 49 or whatever price it goes up to.

11:52

Exactly. Yeah, okay. I love it cuz one of the things is urgency, right? You want to have some urgency and I love the way you've laid this out that it's not so overbearing as well. That's it. What do you think? If you've got an app and you want us to take a look at it, go to appmasters.com/audit appmasters.com/audit if you want to work with us to help you grow your app downloads and revenues, well go check out appmasters.com.

12:20

Make sure you hit that like button. If you got any questions for me, leave a comment below and I'll see you on the next video.