My side of the story of selling Apple iPhone apps on the Apple App Store while doing a day job…!!!

I am selling apps on Apple App Store since 2012, Tried free apps with excellent sales but no revenue or no Apple iAd revenue or very little. I kept doing that for two to four years. Then I removed all of my apps from the sale and kept my account inactive with no apps on ready for sale for almost one or two years.

Then Swift language was introduced with support for Unicode while watching Apple’s Keynote presentation, I got the idea of Learning Devanagari Script apps with support for Marathi, Sanskrit and Hindi Languages.

It got almost 3 months of the year 2016 for me to record 500 audio samples and videos with proper code to get to the level of MVP i.e. Minimum Viable Product.

Next three years I finished recording audio and designing videos and vector illustrations. So it was a total of 700 Audio Recordings with statements and alphabets (Vowels, Consonants and Barakhadi), and 422 animated videos for stroke by stroke guide. Then almost 500 vector and raster illustrations.

With Covid and Corona Epidemic and forced leave from March to November I finished and upscaled all of my apps with visual and performance quality for my Mudrakshar, Swarakshar and Chitrakshar apps.

All of my apps are now available on Apple App Store & Mac App Store. The platforms that my apps support are iPhone (iOS), iPad (iPadOS) and Macintosh (macOS). I am using UIKit for all the above platforms.

But one thing that still bothers me is the low volume of sales even after doing this for three-four years. I normally sell 4 to 5 apps weekly or two apps daily with an average sale of $50 to $75 per month. But when I introduced Subscriptions to my apps, My revenue got increased with Monthly & Yearly renewals. As users are paying me monthly or yearly to use my app. So I now have a repeat user with payment.

I don’t know what marketing channel I am missing, What I am doing wrong and why sales are moderate. I think I need professional help in Marketing my apps. I even tried registering for Apple Search Ads but Apple required GST Number and to get a GST number I have to get myself registered with the GST office with the monthly expense CA (Chartered Accountant) to pay the GST Amount every 21st of the month If I miss I will have to pay penalty. And If I register my LLP then it’s 30% Income Tax upfront. Even CA told me you should only register for GST Number if your monthly sales are more than 10 Lakhs (10,00,000/-) rupees.

It’s frustrating that registering a company in India is so cumbersome.

I hope I see the brighter light of the day for apps on the revenue front.

But the wise decision I made all of my life that is not to quit my day job but instead do a business of apps and do a full-time job as a designer. My job helps me earn my money on a good number and then I invest some of that money and time in designing and developing my apps.

It’s my whole story for the last 8 years that I have been playing with.

If you have suggestions do share any other advice you have.

Thanks & Regards
Mandar Apte