It doesn’t take much to be a “successful” developer of Mac apps

Considering how many billions of dollars Apple gives to iOS app developers every year, you would think that Mac app developers enjoy at least a somewhat similar level of success. However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth, as developer Sam Soffes explained in a recent blogpost. Soffes managed to make it into the top ten list for paid apps on Mac in the United States… with a mere 94 sales which raked in $302 in profits. 

There’s a good reason why the term App Store economy is often used to describe the iTunes App Store. In 2014 alone, Apple doled out $10 billion to iOS developers. Since the App Store went live in 2008, developers have netted more than $25 billion in earnings. In turn, many developers have been able to turn mobile app development into full fledged careers. The Mac App Store, in stark contrast, is not nearly as lucrative. A recent blogpost by developer Sam Soffes, who released a Mac app that broke into the top 10 list of paid Mac apps in the U.S., highlights how the amount of money developers can earn in the Mac App Store is shockingly lower than anyone probably realized. Soffes’ Mac app, titled Redacted for Mac, is a nifty piece of software that enables users to easily redact sensitive information from photos. Upon being released earlier this week, the app quickly became the 8th most downloaded app on the U.S. Mac App Store and the #1 paid app in the Graphics section.