How Long Until You Get Rich?

My name is Ilfat, and I am developing a mobile app called Letterly. It’s an app that quickly converts speech into well-written text that can be used in messages, emails, notes, social media posts, and more.

There are four founders in our team, but we have limited funds. Therefore, we are exploring the science of bootstrapping and actively working on free promotion channels.

If you’re in the same situation as us, you might be wondering: Am I stuck in one place for too long? Shouldn’t I be making money by now? I want to try to answer this question by referring to the research from RevenueCat.

The study sample includes 30,000 mobile apps. Regardless of your actions — whether you’re actively promoting on Facebook, using free promotion methods, or focusing more on development than marketing — you fall into the statistics I will share with you now.

Question 1: What are the chances you’ll get rich?

On average, only ~17% of apps reach $1k monthly revenue, but of those that do, 59% of them reach $2.5k, and then 60% of those reach $5k

Here is a chart that reflects this:

Key takeaway: Reach $1,000 per month! This is the hardest part. By all means, achieve it!

As you can see, at each of the milestones (after $1k), the probability of success roughly halves. So, dreaming of $10,000 a month remains a distant possibility, with only about a 4% chance.

You can also look at the chart where this breakdown is provided by category. If your app is in the Business category, your chances of success are lower. But in Photo & Video, they are higher!

Question 2: When will you get rich?

The median number of days it takes an app to reach $1k in monthly revenue is 65 days, while getting to $5,000 takes a total of 120 days.

Here is a small chart that reflects this:

Key takeaway: Once you hit $1,000 in monthly revenue, new milestones come faster!

As you can see, on average, four months is enough to reach $5,000 per month. Now think about it: if you haven’t reached $1,000 a month in six months, what’s the problem? Are you an outlier in the statistics or just part of the 83% of startups that don’t reach this threshold?

You can also look at the chart by category. If your app is in the Travel category, you will quickly reach $1,000 per month, but it will take almost a year to reach $5,000 per month (a median of 332 days). In Gaming, reaching the $5,000 milestone happens the fastest!

Conclusion

Of course, these are statistics. If you have reasons to believe that your product will soon generate more revenue but isn’t currently doing so for some unpopular reason, that’s okay!

At Letterly (by the way, the best AI speech-to-text app in the world), our revenue fluctuates. We currently make about $4,000 a month, and we have never launched any paid promotion channels. There are people who love us. They motivate us to keep working and thinking about how to grow further. And we don’t care if it takes longer than the timelines from this research.

Finally, I have a statistic that should cheer you up if you have revenue of more than $50 a month (and upset you if it’s less):

The median monthly revenue an app generates in 12 months is a little under $50 USD

So if you’ve reached $50, you’re in the better half of apps in history!

Good luck with developing your products!

The best way you can help me is to try Letterly app, tell your friends about it, or just share your feedback! I will continue to write about valuable marketing things regardless!

Thank you!