Business Insights No 1. | November 2023 | Indie Developer Projects Insight

Released on Tuesday December 5th in 2023 by Simon Braun

Business Insights

Numbers are in EURO for last month of November 2023 and are provided for released projects.

AURICULA – Monthly summary

A service update just added up to the latest uptick in downloads and sales. Last month November Auricula was participating in a collective indie apps black friday sale (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). I lowered the price of Auricula Pro (Lifetime – non-consumable IAP) from 6.99€ to 2.99€ for 4 days.

FILMLOG – Monthly summary

The ongoing development of Filmlog 3.0.0 for many months is wearing on the version in the AppStore and is possibly causing a decline in user interest. Last month Filmlog was participating in a collective indie apps black friday sale (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). I lowered the price of Filmlog Plus (Lifetime – non-consumable IAP) from 6.99€ to 2.99€ for 4 days.

Downloads

Filmlog 419 Installs | +12% | 34% via SearchAds
Auricula 462 Installs | +22% | 27% via SearchAds

Downloads are up for November, nice. Did convert nicely for Auricula, but not so nice for Filmlog. I think it’s due to the not so optimal state of the Filmlog app that is eagerly awaiting the next major app update with many new features and polish!

Sales (profit)

Filmlog 36,72€ | -5%
Auricula 68.85€ | +60%

The black friday sale did definitely help with visibility, but updating both apps is also increasing sales in my experience.

Paid user ratio

Filmlog not available yet
Auricula 194 / 80% Free | 48 / 20% Pro (iOS and iPadOS only)

New insights thanks to TelemetryDeck (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)*. I’m very happy with the ratio of paid users for Auricula. I guess that you do not download the app, if you are not interested in learning to identify intervals. So about all users are likely to become paid users and therefor 20% is pretty good.

Sessions (AppStore Analytics / opt-in)

Filmlog 4,302 | +6%
Auricula 871 | +0%

High session numbers for Filmlog are quite important and keep rising continuosly. They should not be compared directly to the in contrast short usage/learning period of Auricula, which is also visible in number of sessions.

SearchAds

Filmlog 25€ spend – Average CPI 0.17€ – 143 Installs
Auricula 25€ spend – Average CPI 0.20€ – 125 Installs

I keep spending capped at 25€ – because I want to add an additional stream of possible new users, but do not want to pay high CPIs nor too much of my monthly sales income.

Monthly costs

I try to keep monthly costs very low, but looking out for growth enablers. In November I started reinvesting some time and money into ASO via appfigures. And it’s the first newsletter so I might miss something, will of course add accordingly in the future.

Hosting 9.41€ – Legacy plan (112€ yearly)
Domains ?€
Public work phone 10€ – fraenk

GitTower ?€ Pro ? plan (?€ yearly)– discount

RevenueCat Free plan – not in use yet (will be part of Filmlog 3.0.0)
TelemetryDeck Free plan – for now (767/100.00 signals)
appfigures 20.64€ – Monitor (50% blackfriday discount for 12 months)
Mastodon Instance Support 1.19€ (via Patreon)

Other costs

To complete the insight other costs are added here.

Company re-definition 30€ – german company paper work

Thank you for reading my newsletter! Until next month and stay safe, Simon

If you want to become a testimonial for the newsletter or if you have questions, suggestions or critique, please write me: feedback@simonbraun.eu (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Simon Braun – Website (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) / Mastodon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

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