App and web service case studies
These are cases of mobile apps and (non-subscription) web services, where the developer disclosed revenue, downloads or a sale price. Small Start records the numbers with sources.
Indie app income is wildly skewed: this archive holds a $350K/month app and a 13-game portfolio that earned ¥700 in four years, on the same shelf.
- Case studies
- 44
- Sale price
- 10億円
App and web service cases
1–24 of 44
Sauna Ikitai: A Hobby Search Site Reaches ¥72.88M in Year-Two Revenue — Zero Employees and a ¥370/Month Subscription Capped at 10,000 Members
Sauna Ikitai, a sauna search site four enthusiasts started as a hobby, grew from about ¥14.01M in first-year revenue to about ¥72.88M with over ¥10M in net profit in year two, per reporting based on its statutory filings. No employees were hired, and the ¥370/month paid membership is capped at 10,000 members. The endpoint of turning a hobby into a business, read in numbers.
Skeb: The "Personal Hobby Service" That Sold All Its Shares for ¥1 Billion — Settling the Risk of One Person Holding ¥200 Million a Month in Transactions
Skeb, which its founder called a "personal hobby service," reached 1 million registered users and roughly ¥200 million in monthly transaction volume in just over two years, then became a subsidiary of Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha in February 2021 for ¥1 billion. The top reason for selling was not stalled growth but payment-settlement risk.
AI Directories: $10,000 a Month from One-Time Purchases, Built on a Chore He Automated
A service that submits AI products to 100+ directories by hand. Built for the founder's own use, it became the biggest earner in his portfolio, now at $10,000/month across products. But the three numbers he publishes — interview, pricing page, revenue page — don't match.
From ¥100 to ¥100,000 a Month in Three Years: The Quiet Compounding of an Ads-Only Tool App
The tool app built by Wakanao, a solo developer from Hokkaido, earned about ¥100 a month at launch. Over three-plus years of persistence, MAU grew more than 100x and revenue reached ¥100,000 a month from AdMob ads alone. A record of the growth curve of an app with no paid features and no marketing — one that simply stayed on the store.
10 apps over 8 years, 30,000 yen a month. The peak was 2021 — why an indie developer's ad revenue turned downhill
A 50-something engineer at a manufacturer published 8 apps for iOS and 2 for Android. Steady ASO work drove growth until 2021, when he peaked at nearly 50,000 yen a month. After he stopped building new apps in 2022, revenue declined, and it now sits around 30,000 yen a month.
Apple froze his account, revenue dropped 75% — the comeback: 30 apps mass-produced into $60,000/month
Viktor Seraleev lost 75% of his revenue overnight when he relocated in 2022, then had Apple freeze his developer account and his bank account frozen too. He abandoned swinging for a single hit and switched to a "build 10 apps, no matter what" rule — now running 30+ apps at over $60,000/month.
Moonlight: 10,000 Engineers, $10,000/Month in Subscription Revenue — Choosing “Sell, Not Raise” in the Pandemic
Moonlight, a remote-developer marketplace with 10,000 registered engineers and thousands of client companies, sold to PullRequest while subscription revenue was still at $10,000 a month. The turning point was March 2020, when COVID hit and the founders chose an exit over a further raise.
¥2.5 Million a Month From a Chat-Analysis App: 85% of Traffic From TikTok, 37.5% CVR — an Indie Design "Reverse-Engineered From the Distribution Channel"
IsTalk, a chat-analysis app by Kei, an engineer with 15 years of experience, reached 600K cumulative downloads and over 4,600 subscriptions for roughly ¥2.5 million/month, hitting #1 in the App Store Utilities category. 85% of traffic comes from TikTok or friend referrals, and CVR improved from 24.2% to 37.5%. First-class real data on an indie app, published with screenshots.
Ammesso.it: 70,000 Users on a Med School Exam App, Sold as a Side Project for Mid Six Figures
Ammesso.it, an Italian medical school entrance exam prep app, sold to fellow exam-prep company Testbusters in June 2021 with about 70,000 users, for a mid-six-figure dollar amount. It was essentially a two-person side project.
Business Name Generator Domainify Sells for Eight Figures: A Suite of Tools That Captured the "Naming Moment"
Domainify Group, a suite of tool sites that generate business and domain name ideas, was sold to Game Lounge for eight figures in dollars (billions of yen). A business capturing the search demand behind the very first act of starting a business: finding a name.
With a $70 ad budget he got 130 installs and 2 paying users. Then he left Android for a Chrome extension and sold 7 copies in a week
The developer spent about 10,000 yen on Play Store ads for an Android app and got over 130 installs but only 2 subscribers. The same developer then launched two Chrome extensions with a combined 41 installs, and 7 of those users bought the Pro version — revenue overtook the app within a week. Conversion rose from roughly 1.5% to roughly 17%.
90 quiz apps, 8.2 million downloads, ¥20 million+ in revenue — the real picture of mass production, where only 2 in 10 hit
A solo developer who specializes in quiz/personality apps released 90+ titles over four years, reaching 8.2M downloads and over ¥20M in revenue, while admitting flops like a 5,000-download "romantic type" quiz.
A tech-book ranking site built from 300,000 Qiita articles hit 100,000 yen in revenue three weeks after launch
A solo developer aggregated roughly 300,000 Qiita articles via API to build a ranking of 4,000 technical books, and the site earned 100,000 yen within three weeks of launch. The turning point was setting aside his own passion project after a prior failure and rebuilding the concept from scratch by studying and copying successful examples.
A crypto side-hustle app went from ¥300,000/month to a few thousand yen. 20,000 installs, ¥18,000-per-referral, and how it vanished
A manufacturing employee's hobby crypto demo-trading app "BitVirtual" hit 20,000 installs and ¥300,000/month during the 2017 boom, with exchange affiliate payouts up to ¥18,000/referral — then collapsed to a few thousand yen a month a year later.
Five years on one app, then 30 apps in ten months. The portfolio pivot that reached $22,000/month
Max Artemov, an iOS engineer with 8 years of experience, spent over five years failing to grow his first app, a calorie counter. In February 2025 he switched from "polish one app" to "ship many," and in 10 months reached 30+ apps generating a combined $22,000 MRR.
Deep Research: $400 in Startup Capital, Price per Project From $700 to $6,000 — the Year It Changed What It Was Actually Selling
Abhishek Kumar started customer-research agency "Deep Research" in January 2023 with $400 in capital. It now averages $10,000/month, peaking at $15,000 in October 2023. The turning point was reframing the same research from "interview service, $700" to "business decision material, $6,000."
Warary!: A Comedy Live Show Search Service Built Solo for 2.5 Years, Then Sold to a Company
A case where the comedy live show search service "Warary!" was run solo for two and a half years and sold to a company in 2020. The sale price is undisclosed, but the developer has published his rule of thumb — "monthly profit x 24 months + goodwill" — along with his criteria for deciding whether to sell or keep going.
Talknotes: 17 Built, 1 Hit — the Breakdown Behind an AI Voice-Notes App at $9,000/Month and 900 Paying Users
Talknotes, which turns voice memos into text using AI, was built in 3-4 days and launched for under $10 in upfront cost. It now has 5,000 users, over 900 of them paying, for about $9,000/month. The turning point was abandoning SEO and building a loop that recycled annual prepayments straight into ad spend.
Yoga app Floga hits $10K/month. Pre-launched unfinished, it raised $120K in 24 hours
A card-deck founder pre-launched an unfinished yoga app, raised $120K in 24 hours outside app stores, and reached $10K/month a year later with 4,000 active users.
Really Good Emails: Why Did a $250K-a-Year Email Gallery Sell for $6.6M? The Deal Structure Behind “26x Revenue”
Really Good Emails, a gallery of marketing email examples, had $250K in annual revenue but sold to Growens in 2024 for $6.6M — 26x revenue on paper. The catch: the breakdown was a $600K upfront payment plus up to $6M in earnout. A case where a "strategic value" — 220,000 subscribers and about 100 million annual pageviews — got priced in.
RemoteOK: $140K/month to $10K to $41K. What a remote job board's wild swings teach about "market dependency"
The remote-work job board RemoteOK hit $140K/month before the pandemic, then dropped 93% to $10K/month as market conditions soured, before recovering to $41K (about ¥6.15M). Pieter Levels' record of publicly disclosed swings shows the volatility inherent to a job board — a business sitting downstream of market conditions.
RPG Game App Sells for ¥1,750,000 (About 7 Months of Monthly Revenue)
From Rakko M&A's public list of closed deals. An RPG game app sold for ¥1,750,000, about 7 months of monthly revenue. We record the going rates in Japan's individual-scale M&A market based on the listed data.
Photopea: “Photoshop That Runs in a Browser,” Built Solo for 13 Years — a Bizarre P&L of $3M Revenue on $12,600 in Expenses
Ivan Kutskir started building the browser-based image editor Photopea while a student in 2012. It ran unmonetized for five years before he added ads in 2017. By 2021 annual revenue hit about $1M, and by 2024 it reached $3M (90% from ads) — with expenses of about $12,600 a year and development still done by one person.
14 years of solo development to reach ¥1M/month — the revenue curve from 290,000 page views for ¥100,000 to 4.22 million page views for ¥1M
SiRO, a former systems engineer, reached ¥1M/month after 14 years of solo development. At ¥100,000/month, traffic was 290,000 page views; at ¥1M/month, it was 4.22 million. The turning point was abandoning user-submission-based services in favor of tool-type products — visible in the shifting revenue-per-pageview curve.
FAQ
- How much does an indie app make?
- Cases include Stella, an AI app built in 2 days by a creator with 4M followers, at $350K/month within two months; Photopea at $3M/year with $12,600 in costs; and a Japanese developer whose 13 games earned ¥700 in total.
- Do apps and web services get acquired?
- Yes, at both ends: an RPG app sold for ¥1.75M (about 7 months of revenue), while Really Good Emails sold for $6.6M — 26x its $250K annual revenue.