Google is forcing me to update my Android apps, so after about three years of not even looking at it, I am returning to Elevation and Sea Depth. I've decided to "touch the base" and review the app history before preparing it for the next, 33rd release.
The app was initially launched on May 1, 2010, and it was the third Android app that I developed. I still consider it the most interesting one that I made. Believe it or not, the APK had a size of 57.8KB. I even kept some screenshots from that time.
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Currently, the Play Store is reporting over 50,000 cumulative downloads. I am unable to access more detailed statistics for the period before July 25, 2019, as the Play Store does not display it, and Flurry Analytics, that app once used, has been sunset. But here is what I have.
Elevation and Sea Depth targets a very specific group of people in particular circumstances, so I can't really expect mind-blowing usage. However, 188 active installation out of those 50,000+ downloads is a bit ... disappointing? I believe the app probably peaked around Jul 2017, at least judging by the number of AdMob requests.
The total all-time revenue from ads was more than a whopping $1,080. You can't imagine how I spoiled myself with that money. I say "more than" because AdMob doesn't show statistics for the first 4 years of the app's lifetime.
According to the data, the golden era of AdMob revenue, at least for this app, was from March to June 2017.
The first license for the full app version was sold for $5 USD on August 7, 2010. At that time, merchant accounts from my country were not supported by the Google Play Store (then called Android Market), so I had to find an e-commerce provider and implement my own license server.
Overall, during that period, 186 licenses were sold. The sales stopped in September 2011 and started again in January 2012 when I dropped the price to $0.99 USD. In May, I completely switched to another e-commerce provider and stayed with them until 2019 when they stopped supporting Android. I managed to sell the first 34 licenses for $5 USD and the remaining 152 for $0.99 USD, totaling $320.48 before deducting all the fees.
In 2019, the Play Store started supporting my country as well, so I had to switch to their monetization platform and drop all third-party e-commerce providers. Three licenses were sold for $0.99 each. Next year, I decided not to sell the app at such a low price any more, so I switched to subscription payments, just like with the rest of my apps, with a yearly price of $15.99 USD. So far, two subscriptions have been sold.
To sum it all up, this app has made me less than $1,500 USD in the last 14 years. Far from what more successful apps of mine made, but still four times more than what I made with Weather Forecast USA.
The question is: can I squeeze more juice out of it? I definitely don't want to kill my baby, but obviously it's been in a kind of zombie state forever. Well, I guess we'll se if it picks up after the update.
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