How long did it take to make back your $50 with LWC?

Hey guys, after reading the new 3.0 update, I noticed some people mentioned that they made back their original investment really quickly. I was wondering how many people are seeing success using LWC? Maybe if some users aren't, they can get some tips from the veterans? What ad networks are you using? How many LWPs, and what kind are they, do you have on the market? If you don't mind sharing your experience that is!

I, personally, made my $50 back in a little over a week. I started out with 3 wallpapers at first and I used Leadbolt in 2 of them, Airpush in the other, and Startapp in all 3. I used the LWC Referral Link that they posted somewhere on the forum (Thanks Vas! ) and that gave me a bonus of $25 immediately! Leadbolt started me out with high ECPMs but those faded over time Airpush has been stead at around $1.30 but I heard some people get higher ECPMs with other ad networks, not sure how stable those are though.

After I made those $50 back, it all became profit from there! I got really excited and made 2 more wallpapers (this was around when 2.1 came out and I could now make some changes via Eclipse) that had some extra features that really took off! I decided to make 5 more wallpapers and uploaded them somewhat recently (mid February I believe), they're doing okay right now (one randomly jumped to 500 installs per day last week! ). Altogether though, those 5 wallpapers are probably bringing in around $6 a day ($4 from Startapp and $2 from Airpush) and they've only been up for a little over a month and they continue to grow! Gotta love the Android Market!

Overall, my experience with LWC has been absolutely phenomenal. I'm not exactly a tech wiz with programming, but I made my money back without doing any Java. Then when 2.1 came out, it made my experience a lot better! I make around $30 a day with my wallpapers now and since I've been using LWC, I have saved up enough to go on a trip to Jamaica with my buddy! Among a few other bills

I just want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to the LWC team for making this phenomenal software. The money I'm making with it helps me out sooo much and even still I know I'm being lazy and not making enough wallpapers! >_<

When I go to Jamaica, I will definitely toast Vas, Fando, and whoever else is part of this amazing team! Thank you guys!

woaaaaaaaaahhh this is really an awesome story!!

i currently really looking for how to makes money with something that i can do.
only after a few days ago, i'm thinking about making a game. but the engine etc is really a lot of stuff, time, and money...
in my 'solo project', i give up.

i can do illustration, and i can make animation over that. so i'm thinking about making a live wallpaper, and i found this 'looks awesome' Engine XD

My Question First,
1. So Maxim, you sold that in Google Play? Is it for free? or you put a price in it? can you give me the link to that google play of yours? 'just curious XD'
2. if it's free, how you makes money from it? In apps ads? is it works that well and user don't complain about the ads?
3. I found this here http://www.livewallpapercreator.com.../checkout-my-cool-live-wallpaper-website.192/.
he said we can put our creation there in his website, FOR FREE. so how can we make profit using these? is it a good option too? and what's the different from putting it in google play?

really looking forward for your reply
sory if i asking to much, i'll start searching the FAQS and Tutorial if the answer is as awesome as it seems

My case is a little different. I purchased LWC about about 15 months ago, and had a few paid wallpapers and 1 free one. I sold maybe $10 in paid ones in the first 11 months, then my free one (no ads unfortunately) took off one day, netting over 120k installs in the course of the last 4 months. I sold another $5 worth of the paid version of the same app.

It wasn't until February that I decided to add the word "Demo" in the center of the wallpaper on the free one, then give access to all the same features as the paid one, and that changed my sells drastically. I am now up to 84 copies sold for the paid version of my free app, but that's nothing in comparison to what a lot of you are making using ads.

I incorporated start app into my free wallpaper and it killed it almost overnight, and only recovered after removing start app. Because of this, I've been a little afraid to incorporate any other type of ads, but I am wanting to try out leadbolt. With all the features that are coming with 3.0, I am waiting for the that before I make any updates (don't want to do too many updates back to back, and there are some seriously awesome things in 3.0 from what we've seen). I am also working on preparing other new wallpapers for when it's released, all of which will take advantage of ads. Being able to supplement my income easily will help greatly.

Hey there Keitaro! Welcome to the forums

To answer your questions:
1. I put up 2 versions of every application I make. One for free but with ads, and one for $0.99 but without ads. Here is my Google play link: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=maximus media&c=apps2. I make money from the ads because most people would rather put up with an ad than spend money on it and they understand that it's because of the ads, the application can be free. However not everyone thinks that way so I sometimes get a few poor ratings. If people like the wallpaper but really hate ads, they have the option of buying my ad-free version for $0.99. In total though, you can see that none of my apps have less than 4 stars and they ALL have ads in them.
3. That's Jason Griffith's project, he's one of the guys from the forum, from what I understand it's a collection of Live Wallpapers and although I would imagine it is a lot smaller than Google Play, it's definitely a good idea to upload your wallpapers in as many places as possible in order to spread your wallpaper! There are many different markets or websites that are meant for distributing Android applications. Google Play is obviously the biggest one but many other ones, like Jason Griffith's, exist and would only help make your wallpaper more widespread. Not all of them offer the ability to SELL the application though. That doesn't matter as much, I think, because it's the free+ad format that makes the most money.

Hope that helps!

Out of curiosity, when you say killed it almost overnight, what do you mean exactly? Did your active user base go down dramatically? How many upgrades did you get when you uploaded the version with startapp and how many uninstalls vs new installs (before startapp and after)? Did people post nasty comments or something? How long did you wait before taking out startapp? Also, did you add in something to the description to make people aware that the application had a single time ad?

Also, I agree with Vas. I also found it that it's easier to have an ad in the wallpaper from the get go because then users know what they're getting (unless they don't read the description, which a lot of times they dont )

It was because of the how invasive start app is as i read in another thread. I use leadbolt notification only. Hardly anyone complains since they can simply "clear" the notification and go on. Nothing is installed to the desktop, browser, etc. This is were you start to destroy your client base as did ape. Leadbolt notification only will allow you to make money in two ways in which it determines for you which type of ads are getting better results ( over the course of a few days) and shows more of them.

So with leadbolt notification there are two types of ads:
Regular click ad that you make money off of when someone clicks it
Install add in which you make money if the user installs whatever they are lead to from the add. This add type pays more but not a lot of people like it and actually install the things it sends them to.

So if you have 45 clicks but $0 revenue it means leadbolt showed them the click to install add and they did not install it. Over time leadbolt detects this and will switch to the regular click ads and for the same 45 clicks you will make money for each of the 45 clicks.

In this screen shot you will see that the first app i have has made $1.05 today and 3 clicks this is the second app ad type. This is rather a special event since usually no one installs the app that is shown in these ads having it done 3 times by all 3 new users is weird. You can also see the ECPM is $350??? WTF lol but what I actually made on each of the 3 installs was $0.35 lol.

On the other hand the second app I have as you can see is using the first ad type regular click, Roughly $0.02 for each click with 19 clicks today.

Leadbolt doesn't specify which ad type is being displayed etc you have to guess at it like I did. If the ECPM is a crazy figure like the $350 its more than likely the second ad type.

Ads that are not invasive like simple notification ads shouldnt get you many negative reviews however you will still get some since people want everything for free. Other ad agencies that are to invasive will kill your user base just as it did with ape. People ( i for one) don't like apps that put a bunch of bloat on my phone.

That's one way to look at it. The main difference is that while Startapp installs an icon (Leadbolt has Icon ads as well), and changes the home page (it only does this on your native browser, so if you use Chrome, it's unchanged) it does this only ONCE. Push notifications are repeating perpetually. If it was up to me, I would much rather get a free app where I can just delete the icon and then it's mine and ad free forever, as opposed to have an ad every day/2 days, whatever the developer set it to. Pressing clear isn't really that much easier than dragging an icon to the trash. Pressing clear every day though, is.

So it all depends I guess hah.

Yea i dont use any but the notification ones. I didn't implement the icon, app wall, etc from leadbolt. Just did notifications in all the ones I built to test out ads.

thanks for the welcome

woaaaaaaahhh thanks, your answer is really clear and awesum XD

woahhh cool, many people rate 5 starts there, and i'll also try to download it
haha ok2 i got the point

really helpfull!
btw i have 2 personal question about your LWP, i'll message you

Most of my energy has been spent prepping for LWC 3 and all the amazing new features. I'll throw something together and see how it does though.

I'm sure a chunk of my problem was implementing the ad after almost a year of no ads. As far as killing my wallpaper overnight, here's a chart that shows just what happened to my daily installs:

Yikes! That is indeed a drastic drop! I've put in Startapp into apps that didn't have it before but they didn't experience THIS kind of decrease. Maybe it is because it is as you say, you've had it up for almost a year without ads, I had push notifications before so people just click through the EULAs anyways. Maybe it's also the nature of the wallpaper. I would imagine since I make anime themed wallpapers, fans tend to be devoted enough to not mind the ads and enjoy not paying for it . Thanks for clearing it up! It's so hard to read and predict such a mass of users haha, but it sure is interesting

It took me over a year to make real money from LWC because advertising was only implemented recently. If your selling your live wallpapers for money, good luck. To avoid sounding like a broken record, I refer you to my posts in the start-app thread. I would then caution you to avoid start-app. Also, and I can't stress this any more then I already have: make stuff people want. If your graphics suck, then no one will download your software. People only download LWP's if they are graphically appealing and if they are free. The only live wallpapers that can get away with having successful paid variants are the ones made by Kittehface Software, Teragon,
aniFree, 7art Studio's and the other big guys. They get away with paid versions because their live wallpapers are flat out amazing and they make them 100% from scratch. They deserve to get what they do. You are a basic user who is using $50.00 cookie cutter software. Don't expect to make anything for awhile, unless you make something that is really visually appealing.

Bad apps move down and good apps move up. Make apps that move up. I refer you to my posts in the start-app forum for the rest.

By the way, Steel Ape Studios, I'm happy to see that your Live Wallpaper has recovered. I'm a fan of your pin-up girls live wallpaper. I think the idea is innovative and graphically pleasing. I had it set as my own live wallpaper for a bit before I changed it for Easter. You are a great example of someone who is making stuff that people want. 1000 sustained installs a day on a single app is amazing. I bet most of the users here don't even have combined install rates of 1000 a day. Imagine if you made 10, 20, or even 30 more lwp's that achieved 1000 instals a day sustained. You would gobble up lots of market share and board the money train. Just remember: users come first.

Also, and I realize I'm rambling, I also want to thank you guys for LWC. I know I've said it before but it has given me tremendous opportunities and it really opened me up to android. I can't imagine my life right now with out it and the money it earns for me. I make about $48.00 a day ($1,488 monthly) and combined with my day job, I now have enough money to really live comfortably and do whatever I want. And that's only right now, of course I plan to make more lwp's and get more market share. My income increases every month and they sky is the limit as far as I am concerned. I have also gained a knowledge of coding and I am expanding into go-locker themes and other software applications, which are going really well.

I do plan to start donating back to your project very soon to further extend my thanks. I just have to wait a bit because I saved up the money I made from the past couple of months and bought this bad boy: http://goo.gl/jTVGW. Let me tell you guys, it was the best investment I ever made in my entire life. The CalSpa ES852L has it all: 52 jets, switchable in-tub lighting, a water fall, a lounger, a stereo, a pop up TV, cup holders (best feature by far), soo many settings, it can seat 6 people and its just f*cking amazing. Its not quite a trip to Jamaica, but its my own little paradise. I love it more then I love my girl friend and she knows and accepts that.

Btw, Maximus, when you do go to Jamaica, make sure you go to Dunn's Falls. Its this awesome water fall that you can climb up. There is like no safety in Jamaica so it's super fun. See it here: http://goo.gl/ypVFf , its amazing. Also, take a 7 day cruise there, like on Royal Caribbean. That's what I did. You get to see the whole Gulf, its worth it in value, and its the most fun you'll ever have ever. But you WILL gain weight so make sure you exercise before and after your trip!

Guys do you know where I can found open source with scripts to our wallpapers ? or how to create it ? Like ripple effect , rotate, flashing etc.
Now I'm only using background with flying small images xD