Redacted cost $4.99 when it launched, and shortly after its debut the app broke into the Top 10 overall paid apps in the Mac App Store. You might think that would mean the money was pouring in, but it turns out that achievement doesn't guarantee instant riches or tons of downloads.
"Later that evening, I was having drinks with some friends and Matthew Bischoff said he thought I made $10,000 or $20,000," Soffes wrote on his blog. "Until then, I hadn't really thought about how much that would be. All of this success was exciting."
Curious to see what his profit would be after Apple took its 30% cut, Soffes took a look at the sales and sent out a tweet asking for people to take their best guess.
I'll post the sales from yesterday. Anyone have a guess on profit? #8 top paid in the U.S. #1 in Graphics. Only sent out 7 promo codes.
- Sam Soffes (@soffes) May 6, 2015With 37 responses and an average guess of $12,460.67, Soffes finally revealed the real number - $302.
With 94 downloads of Redacted for Mac, seven of which were promo codes, Soffes took home only $302. What's even more interesting is that Redacted was able to crack the top 10 paid apps in the Mac App Store with only 94 downloads.
To put that number into perspective, it took about 950 downloads per day in 2013 to even break into the Top 50 paid apps in the iOS App Store, according to mobile analytics firm Distimo.
"I almost decided to stay indie and work on [the app] Whiskey as much as possible to make a living on that," Soffes wrote in the blog post. "I'm glad I didn't."
Instead, Soffes recently started working at popular payments app, Venmo, where he now enjoys a nice steady paycheck.