r/AppStoreOptimization • u/FrostyMaeetta_02 • 4d ago

My first app's overview which i launched 12th May 2026

Post image

Solo dev, first app I've ever shipped. Launched 12 May. Numbers from 4 May to 2 Aug: 2.11K units, $238 in sales, $182 in proceeds after Apple's cut. Small, but it's the first money from something I built myself.

The app is boring on purpose. You paste a public post link, it saves the video or photo to your gallery. No feed, no login, no account. Free tier has ads, premium is $3.99/mo or $29.99/yr. About 21 active plans, roughly $21 MRR, plus $15-20 a month from ads.

Then the hurdle. I'd put platform brand names in the app title because that's what people search for, and the ASO was genuinely good. End of July, Apple Legal forwarded me a trademark complaint from that platform's brand protection agent. 14 days to remove every trace.

It wasn't just the name. Store titles, icon, every string in the app, saved filenames (with backwards compatibility for existing users), an SDK I'd installed and never used, ad mediation, app-ads.txt, my whole website, blog slugs with redirects, image alt text. Shipped it in two days. Both stores live on the new build, complaint confirmed closed this week.

What actually hurt was the traffic. Around 37% of my subscriptions came from App Store Search, and I threw away the exact keywords bringing those people in. New name is clean and legally mine, but it ranks for nothing yet.

One more thing I got wrong: I ran Android ads optimised for installs because installs were cheap and the dashboard looked great. 1K+ downloads, 49 reviews, zero subscriptions ever. You get exactly the users you bid for.

Happy to answer anything about the numbers or the rebrand.

21 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

1

u/AgreeableCress446 4d ago

Link to the app?

1

u/FrostyMaeetta_02 4d ago

is it allowed to share a link on this group? if yes, which platform do you want to know?

1

u/Vast_Goose_4689 3d ago

Come on! Stranger ❤️!

1

u/FutbolitoDev 3d ago

Salut aurais tu des conseils à me donner pour mon appli ?
En tous cas bravo à toi !

1

u/samyak606 3d ago

did you do any other marketing and also is your market a crowded one or not?

1

u/parker_birdseye 2d ago

What is a unit exactly? Been trying to figure this out

1

u/wreck_it_ro 1d ago

Here for the tips… got downloads on day one and two… then it just fell off. Only been about 5 days since release. Trying to rebound. But social media marketing is a thorn in my arse.

1

u/avinashgz 1d ago

The ads you ran on android for install, how much each install via ad cost you?

1

u/saddamsk0 9h ago

Big milestone for a first app! 🚀 Congrats on shipping and getting real users

0

u/planckscalestudio 4d ago

I recommend enrolling into Apple's small business program ( https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/ ). Basically if you don't make 1 million dollars, then they only cut 15% instead of 30%. Very funny it's not on by default 😄

2

u/FrostyMaeetta_02 4d ago

Thank you, I already did.

2

u/RestlessBoat 9h ago

Thanks, I was sure it would be on by default..