inessential by Brent Simmons

Web, Money; App Store, No Money

Subvert: Why we chose to build our core software business on the open web instead of on a closed app store platform:

More so, unless you have huge sales volumes, it’s near impossible for a company selling $2.99 apps (our lowest cost product and a fee which, in the app store world, is considered wildly exorbitant) to make enough money to support their team, pay for office space, keep up to taxes, cover fees and look after all of the financial requirements that it takes to run a real business.

What is making money for them? A web app.

We’ve done next to zero promotion of this software-as-a-service (SaaS) product since we started building, using and supporting it two years ago. Instead, we’ve been slowly adding to the system, improving the platform and signing up paying customers on a regular basis. As a result, the product has been making money — real money — and long ago surpassed the combined revenues of our other commercial software applications in a big way.

I’m not sure that the choice is between web apps and app store apps — I think it’s actually about standalone apps versus apps-plus-services. But, still, read the post.