My first in-app purchases: what two Remove Ads sales taught me
For a long time every cent this portfolio earned came from ads, and not many cents at that. Then, within two days, two people bought Remove Ads.
Sale one: Genesis, Denmark
A player in Denmark bought Remove Ads in Genesis for 40 Danish kroner. After 25% Danish VAT and Google's 15% cut, that's roughly A$5.84 in my pocket.
For perspective: at the time, that one purchase was worth about as much as ten days of ad revenue across all my games combined.
What I know about the buyer, from analytics:
- an organic player. They found the game in the Play Store on their own,
- in a tier-1 country,
- playing a few days after the game's Danish translation went live,
- an idle player who was clearly hooked.
And what they bought: in Genesis, Remove Ads isn't just about ads. It makes the 2× game speed permanent. The pitch is "the game runs at full speed forever", which I'd designed deliberately. Idle players buy time.
Sale two: Word Slide, Italy
The next day: Word Slide Remove Ads, US$4.81 gross, about US$3.36 after Google's cut and tax.
This one is even more interesting. Word Slide's update with eleven new languages went live late the previous evening, Sydney time. About twenty hours later, a brand-new player with their phone set to Italian installed it, finished three levels, saw one interstitial, and bought Remove Ads, within about 43 seconds of engaged time.
A word puzzle, played in its new language, sold to a European player on day one of that language existing. That's as direct a line from "translate it" to "money" as I'm ever going to get.
What changed after these two sales
Every game keeps Remove Ads. I'd wondered whether a one-time purchase was worth the setup in every small fork. It is. One sale outweighs days of banners.
Prices are local. Google Play converts prices into local currency, and the Danish price ended up a round, sensible-looking number. A price that looks natural in the player's currency matters more than a precise conversion.
Translation is not optional. Both sales came from non-English players, both shortly after a translation shipped. Every game gets twelve languages now, store art included.
Revenue tracking includes purchases. My daily revenue forecast had been AdMob-only. It now reads purchase events (after tax and Google's fee) as well, because ignoring half the revenue makes for a bad forecast.
What these sales don't prove
Two sales is an anecdote, not a conversion rate. I don't know what fraction of players buy, and I won't for a while. A single sale in a day also makes every chart look like a rocket for exactly one day. My forecast now takes care not to extrapolate from a day with a sale in it.
What it does prove: the whole money path works for real people, not just test cards. Organic install, a translated game, a purchase in local currency, money in the account. Every link in that chain had to be built and checked, and now I know it holds.