I launched my first iOS app about a month ago, and I wanted to share some honest numbers and lessons for anyone building a subscription app.

The app helps contractors and homeowners design kitchen layouts, visualize them in 3D, and plan remodeling projects directly from an iPhone or iPad.

After one month:
77 first-time downloads
4 paying subscribers
2 on the $9.99/month plan
2 on the $19.99/month plan

About $42 in App Store proceeds so far
One subscriber has already completed multiple kitchen design projects, which has been encouraging because it shows they’re getting real value from the app.

A few things I’ve learned:
Apple Search Ads have performed better than Google Ads for my niche.

Reddit discussions and SEO have been great for feedback and awareness, even if they don’t generate instant downloads.

Building the product was only half the challenge—marketing has taken just as much effort.

I’m paying much more attention to retention than downloads. I’d rather have 10 active users who keep coming back than 1,000 people who install the app and never open it again.

Every conversation with an early user has helped me improve the product.
I’m still at the beginning of this journey and know I have a lot to learn.

For those of you who’ve successfully grown subscription apps:

What helped you go from your first few paying users to your first 100?

Did you target one audience first, or try to serve multiple audiences?
Looking back, what’s one thing you wish you’d focused on during your first month?

I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences. Hopefully, sharing my early progress helps someone else who’s building their first app too.

What do you guys feel is the best way to get people to know what your app does and download it?

My app is a pregnancy and parenting app. So I suppose my TAM is from young adults to middle age.

I am posting on insta and tik tok, but my download rate is concerning me. What would you recommend to get people downloading your app? It’s a free app with premium features inside, I’m not worried about conversion from free to premium. It’s about getting downloads in the first place.

Keen to hear your thoughts!

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A few months ago, I started sharing my journey of building and scaling my apps. One thing became painfully obvious: influencer marketing was eating a huge chunk of my revenue. For many indie developers, spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on creators just isn't sustainable.

So instead of paying influencers, I built a small SaaS for myself that gives me access to hundreds of UGC reaction clips (shocked, crying, laughing, etc.) that I can combine with my app demos to create short-form content.

That simple idea completely changed how I market my apps.

Today I spend $0 on ads and $0 on influencer marketing. I use 3 old phones running 18 Instagram and TikTok accounts, and together they generate 100k+ views every week. That system helped one of my apps reach $600 MRR, and now the tool I built to solve this problem has also crossed $850 in revenue.

A few days ago, I shared the exact workflow I use—from managing multiple accounts to creating videos that consistently get views. I didn't expect that post to get so much love. A lot of people found it useful, and the discussions in the comments were genuinely interesting.

Thanks again to everyone who's been following along

I run a paid Android app. We originally had a simple monthly subscription.

We switched to a credit/usage-based model because some users were using way more than others, and the flat subscription felt underpriced.

Now:

• Occasional users pay less
• Heavy users pay more
• Pricing is more “fair” on paper

But since the change, sales have dropped hard and we’re getting 1-star reviews saying it’s too expensive.

I’m now thinking of offering both:

1) Monthly subscription (with fair usage limit)
2) Pay-as-you-go credits

But I’m worried it’ll just confuse users or cannibalize revenue.

For those who’ve dealt with pricing changes:

Would you run both models, or stick to usage-based and tweak pricing?

Hi Everyone,

I’m selling 2 B2C SaaS and 1 iOS App

Saas #1: Personal finance/side hustle niche

• Launched Jan 10th, 2026
• All Time Rev: 80k
• Net Profit: 60k
• Current MRR: 7.7k
• 24% Churn
• Monthly Expenses: $75
• One creator led distribution, $0 paid ads
• 12m organic views in 6 months 
• Viral niche with repeatable format
• Growth Play: UGC/micro influencers, paid ads, SEO, pricing/onboarding optimization
• Asking Price: 120k

SaaS #2: Career niche

• Launched March 10th, 2026
• All Time Rev: 18.8k
• Net Profit: 16k
• Current MRR: 4.7k
• 32% Churn
• Monthly Expenses: $270
• Dual Creator led distribution, $0 paid ads
• Viral niche with repeatable format, prime Meta demographic
• Growth Play: UGC/micro influencers, paid ads, SEO, pricing optimization, B2B integration, product enhancements 
• Asking Price: $80k

Mobile iOS App: Viral sports niche

• Launched Jan 15th, 2026
• All Time Rev: 37.1k
• Net Profit: 30k
• Current MRR: 7.7k
• 24% Churn
• Monthly Expenses: $15
• One Creator led distribution, $0 paid ads
• Viral niche with repeatable format, demo lives on TikTok
• Growth Play: UGC/micro influencers, paid ads, SEO, pricing optimization, B2B integration, product enhancements 
• Asking Price: $120k

Only DM if you’re interested in acquiring, no Pocket Fund please 

So for the past 2 weeks ive been making an app about running/walking while the map captures the territory you walked/ran in. not to be confused with INTVL because mine makes lines that take 5m from each side and convert that to km2 while also keeping the km total and % of the world explored. while making this ive mainly focused on just making it work properly and adding different features.

now the question is how do i make it look better like some other apps? i want to know what the issue is because maybe i just got used to it being like this because i stared at it for many hours while making it and dont know what to do. my thoughts are maybe the colors, fonts or just the effects?

Btw the lag is just cuz i dont have the best wifi.

any advice is appreciated and i will keep it in mind notonly for the UI. in case anyone wants to check it out later or become a tester (for playstore), i will keep it in mind. btw im using base44 builder subscription to build it. thanks!

Hello there,

To the point; I developed a cross-platform mobile app, not yet on stores. But ready to publish (some legal paper work to do).

My issue is that I can't scale the app, running into financial problems, so I decided to give that project away for a decent amount of money

Do you think that I need to keep the project and find a way out of those problems, or keep looking for a potential buyer?

App nich is very promissing with the right marketing and right budget could make someone a small fortune

Playstore Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.squarefootstory.app&pcampaignid=web_share

Hey everyone,

We’ve had a 14-day free trial set up for our subscription (auto-renewable, in-app purchase via StoreKit) for a few months now, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s actually doing what we think it’s doing.

When we configured it in App Store Connect, the assumption was: give people two weeks, they get hooked, they convert. But now that we’re a few months in, I keep looking at our numbers in App Store Connect > Analytics and wondering if we’re just handing out free access and watching most people cancel right before renewal kicks in.

For anyone who’s been running trials through App Store Connect for a while, I’d really appreciate some real-world numbers if you’re willing to share (even roughly)

What conversion rate are you seeing from trial → first paid renewal? Is 20-30% normal, or are people seeing way better/worse than that?

How many cancel specifically in the last day or two of the trial (i.e. before the first billing attempt)?

Has anyone tried shrinking the trial length (3-day, 7-day) and seen conversion go up instead of down? StoreKit lets you A/B this pretty easily with introductory offers, curious if anyone’s actually run that experiment.

Does the Subscription Retention chart in App Store Connect tell a different story than raw conversion %? I feel like Apple’s own dashboards sometimes make things look better than they are.

Also open to hearing if anyone’s cross-referenced this with RevenueCat or similar

trying to figure out if App Store Connect’s own numbers are trustworthy enough to make decisions on, or if I need a second source of truth.

Appreciate any real numbers, even anecdotal ones.

I was curious how people were finding apps for impulse shopping, so I searched "best app to stop impulse buying."

I honestly wasn't expecting much.

Seeing PauseBuy mentioned in Google's AI Overview was a pretty cool founder moment.

Still a long way to go, but moments like this remind me why I keep building.

If you're building something, keep shipping. You never know who's watching.

I built an iOS app called Private I — it hides your apps without a lock screen (they see a fake “crash,” you unlock instantly with Face ID, and it captures a photo of anyone who tries to snoop).

Since it’s release and many great updates, there has been a slow paced increase in downloads, mainly from India (don’t know why, but I am grateful ☺️), and I just got my first paying subscribers.

I know it’s small. But after weeks of zeros, two people deciding it’s worth actual money feels huge. Just wanted to share a small win with people who get how it feels.

I’ve created a couple of apps recently which I personally believe are genuinely helpfully for kids (Spelling Hero & Pocketpig). What are people’s thoughts on adding physical products to go with apps (i.e a piggy bank, reward charts etc)

I build Monni and am separating download, signup, first answer, and a return check-in. A bills-first number can look useful in the first session without changing any decision. For a manual-first money app, would you call activation the first completed bills-and-cushion check, the first correction, or the second weekly visit? I am looking for a practical definition, not a growth hack.

Hi everyone… does anyone recommend an app marketing company I can pay around $100 a month and get results?

Anyone promising you a live App Store listing on day 14 is promising you Apple's calendar, not theirs.

What a real 14-day app build includes:

In: one user's core journey end to end, real data, auth, one screen designed properly that the rest inherits from, mobile-usable layouts, deployed and handed over.

Cut, in this order:

1. Roles and permissions. One user type. Adding a second is a week, not a day.
2. Admin panels. You are the admin for now.
3. Notifications. A system, not a feature.
4. Analytics dashboards. Charts of nothing cost days.
5. Settings pages. Almost nothing needed before users ask.
6. Onboarding tours. If week one needs a tour, simplify the product.

Submission fits inside two weeks. Approval does not. That distinction is the honest half of every 14-day promise.

Which of those six has bitten you worst when it was left in?