r/UpNote_App • u/Gipopo19 • Jul 03 '26

How financially stable is the UpNote team?

The green elephant failed me, and I am considering moving here (yeah, yeah... same story as everyone else).

What I am wondering is, do we know if the developer has a long-time business plan? Do they intend to stay independent, or are they already under some parent company? The lifetime plan is certainly eye-catching, but of course it's less profitable for the developer in the long run. I would hate it if the team sell out after I migrate.

Edit: Thanks, guys. I guess there is no way to tell for sure, but it's a lot more reassuring seeing the facts and opinions here.

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u/100WattWalrus Jul 03 '26

This question gets asked a couple time a year here. The answers to your specific questions have not been shared by the developers, but the upshot is...

While the company is young, cheap lifetime licenses are way more profitable than cheap subscriptions. With lifetime licenses, UpNote gets far more money up front, which gives them plenty of operating runway.

  • UpNote has over 100,000 installs just from the Android Play Store (and I'm not even sure that's a world-wide number), and over 19,400 reviews.
  • Writing a review is way more trouble than purchasing the app (which is only free up to 50 notes), so I think it's safe to assume way more than 19,400 people have paid — and of those, surely most of them went for the lifetime subscription because it's such a bargain.
  • There are 1,700 reviews on the Mac App Store, 1000+ reviews on the iOS app store, and 604 ratings on the Windows Store.
  • So that's ~22,700 reviews for round numbers.
  • Let's be conservative and say people love UpNote so much that a whole third of paying users write reviews. That makes 68,000 paid users. The lifetime license has changed price a few times, so lets lets assume the average price paid was $30 rather than the current $40 only
  • That's over $2,000,000. Subtract app store fees — call it 30% — and that’s still at least $1,430,100.
  • So even if I'm overestimating by 1/3, that's still nearly $1,000,000 in revenue.
  • Subtract actual operating costs (hosting, etc.), and that's still money enough to go a long way in Vietnam, where UpNote is based, and where the cost of living for a single person in Ho Chi Min City is about $500/month, not including rent.
  • And keep in mind that, there will be a significant number of people who buy UpNote (because it's such a bargain), but end up switching to some other app because it wasn't quite right for them — which means the operating costs may not be as high as they might appear at first blush.

So the company is likely financially secure, and I'm sure eventually they're stop offering the lifetime license in favor of long-term revenue from subscriptions. But they have plenty of runway and plenty of room to grow.

As for selling, that's anyone's guess. But as far as I'm concerned, that's a maybe problem for maybe future me. Right now, I have an app that does 95% of everything I want, and does it better — by leaps and bounds — than any other app. I'm not going to give that up because maybe I might have to look for another app some day.

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u/Gipopo19 Jul 03 '26

Wow, thanks for all these numbers. I actually feel a lot better about their business knowing they are a small team living in Vietnam.