How many regular users are required?

We have not released our app yet but were wondered what sort of numbers of regular ( daily ) users would you need to make any sort of money. Whats a ball park figure for active users vs income.?

paid or free apps?
game or app?
what is your imagination of “any sort of money”?

you will not find such a chart, I think, because it depends on the type of the app.

If your talking about a paid app then thats easy ‘users x price = revenue’. I have a feeling though you are talking about an ad supported app.

For ad supported apps there are alot of variables involved that makes X users = Y dollars hard to answer with any sort of accuracy.

how much time does a user spend in the app? (5 second quick glance to check something or an hour playing a game?)
how often will the user open the app? (10 times a day or once every few months)
what type of users will use the app? (certain type of users may be more likely or less likely to click an ad)
where are the users located? (different ads may be targeted at different locations, some ad providers don’t have a high fill rate in certain locations)
what type of ads are going to be served to an app? (depending on how many ads you request as well as your click through rate and any demograhic data or keywords for your app will determine what type of ads are served, the ad served can affect the click through rate plus the amount paid per click)

I’ve seen wide ranges of eCPM depending on the app. Also number of total downloads (or even active users) doesn’t always give a clear indication of how many ad requests you will see per day.

I know that wasn’t the answer you were looking for. But its hard for us to even give you a general ballpark number with so many variables.

Even when I set out to develop a new app I don’t even make an assumption about how many users I need to make it profitable. I also learned you can never tell how popular an app will be. Just have to throw it out there and see how it does. Going forward I am no longer going to develop every bell and whistle into an app until I see how it does. If it is popular and generates income then I can go back and add the extra features.

confirmed - that’s the best you can do. Another plus for this is, that users always get something new and therefore will longer use/play your game/app - so they get more for free :slight_smile: