60 Percent of App Developers Don't Break Even

Hoping to strike it rich with your mobile app, a la Instagram? Don't quit your day job just yet.
A new survey from app marketing firm App Promo revealed that 80 percent of developers are not generating enough revenue with their app to support a standalone business. Worse yet, 60 percent aren't even earning enough to break even with development costs.
In the survey of more than 100 "qualified" app developers, 68 percent said their total revenue to date was $5,000 or less, while 20 percent have earned between $5,000 to $50,000, and a mere 12 percent made more than $50,000. When it came to download numbers, 63 percent said their app was downloaded 50,000 times or less, while 11 percent had 500,000 or more downloads.
The survey also suggests that in order to succeed, developers need to do more than just build an app. The top earners in the survey, or those who have made more than $50,000 off their app to date, all apparently had a marketing budget and spent 14 percent of their time, on average, promoting their app.
"A definitive correlation exists between the level of success a developer sees with their app and the amount of time and money they spend on marketing this product," the survey states.
But most developers don't spend that much time promoting their apps. Fifty-two percent spend 5 percent or less of their time on marketing efforts.
Meanwhile, March saw a "dramatic decline" in the number of iPhone apps downloaded, according to recent data from mobile app marketing firm Fiksu. The top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps garnered 4.45 million downloads a day in March, down from 6.35 million per day in February.
Last year, one survey found that the top 1 percent of iOS game developers make a third of the revenue.
For more, see the infographic below.
For more from Angela, follow her on Twitter @amoscaritolo.