What?s It Cost To Be A Top iPhone App? $1,875 A Day
 

If you plan to use advertising to promote your iPhone app, don?t expect to break the top 100 without paying a pretty penny.

To do so, it will cost $1,875 a day, according to Adwhirl, which aggregates a handful of ad networks to help publishers monetize their apps on the iPhone. (If you remember, Adwhirl recently got attention for sparing with AdMob about its policies on aggregators).

Since paying that big sum is not practical, Adwhirl has another suggestion: develop a free iPhone app that will generate a large user base, and then leverage those users it to drive traffic to your paid app. The idea is not super original. Game companies commonly offer free versions to get people hooked in hopes of converting them over to paying customers. However, Adwhirl does a good job of explaining why. More on that after the jump?.

Adwhirl writes in its blog that this approach works because it takes about only 2,500 downloads a day to become one of the most downloaded free apps for a particular category?which is more attainable than becoming a top paid app. ?For us, the solution was simply to release a few free apps, which quickly gain many ?throwaway? users and offer an effective channel to advertise the apps that were important to us.? But why are free apps easier to get users for? Because right now, only a quarter of all apps are free, even though they generate 95 percent of all downloads.

Adwhirl hopes to start helping developers with this soon by opening up its platform to cross-promote each other apps.

http://moconews.net/article/419-what...app-1875-a-day

Happy Canada day!

Nice read - thanks

I just picked up a touch over the weekend and have been checking out the apps and thought what kind of money those top apps were making.

They are making crazy money! From what I understand Apple keeps 30% though

Hey thanks ya hoser! :pimp:thumbsup

I don't usually drinking on Wed. but will today..:2 cents:

Such a bs statistic. It's basing on the fact that you have to pay for 37,500 clicks a day at .05 cents a click. Most people find apps through word of mouth, app ratings, bloggers posting reviews, youtube demos, etc. When your app is good, you don't need to buy traffic, it spreads like wildfire FOR FREE. Adwhirl is basically just trying to justify their new mobile advertising rates with a bs # like this.

check your email .. Mark

:thumbsup

Why wouldn't it be practical? If you are making a profit, what's the problem?

I havent found one of my apps thru ads. Its all been on the app store what caught my eye and then the reviews.

It's actually $1,875.85

Nice post DH.

can you do trials on apps?

Yes. You couldn't in the past but now you can. Not autorebilled though. :(

What are these Apps things you speak of????

How many people do you think are accidentally clicking on the admob/adwhirl banners?

Most of what I read is that clicks are high...conversions real bad.

So could they be accidentally clicking?