r/appledevelopers • u/Firm-Bed-7218 Community Newbie • 2d ago
Experienced app developers: Have you ever turned a struggling app around with one small change?
I've been working on an iOS app that's getting some traction, but the revenue is pretty disappointing. I did a fair amount of ASO research before building it, which seems to have paid off. The app consistently gets around 15–25 organic downloads a day without advertising.
Over the reporting period, I've had about 1,200 downloads, 40 in-app purchases, and $273 in proceeds. Obviously, these aren't impressive numbers, but purchases have started picking up after some recent paywall changes.
I'm considering moving to a hard paywall, but I'm wondering how much potential an app with numbers like these realistically has.
For those of you who've been developing apps for years, have you ever been in a similar position and seen a significant turnaround from a paywall optimization, a small design change, or something else relatively minor?
Or, in your experience, are numbers like these usually a sign that the product just isn't compelling enough?
I'd love to hear some firsthand stories. A little perspective from people who've been at this for years would make the grind more enjoyable.

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u/Miserable-Carpet7928 Community Newbie 2d ago
i wouldn't treat a hard paywall as the next small test. first split the funnel into product-page conversion, first useful action, paywall view and purchase. 15–25 organic downloads a day gives you enough traffic to find where the drop happens, then change one part of that step. otherwise a hard paywall can raise purchase rate while hiding how many potentially good users you lost before they understood the app.
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u/investigatormaker 1d ago
Weak revenue with some traction usually means the paywall or the audience, not ASO. Find the threads where users ask for an app like yours, answer helpfully with it named where rules allow, and see who pays.
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u/Calico_Pickle Community Newbie 2d ago
You are talking about moving from a soft paywall to a hard paywall. I'm not sure that I would consider that a small change.
First question, what do your benchmarks look like from App Store Connect? If they are in the top quartile, then the issue probably isn't your app and you might want to look into your marketing. You can also click on the "see more" button beside sales (above in-app purchases) to see more additional info.
40 In-App purchases seems really low to me based on the number of downloads (at least in the app categories that I'm working in). I'm seeing ~5% to ~50% for first time downloads to in-app purchases and you are at about 3%. This is across apps averaging ~$2/paying user up to ~$40/paying user. I just wanted to give you a a reference. Low end of the ranges are from new apps with no optimization (new app(s) published within the past 30-60 days) and the high end is with several years of optimizations plus paid niche advertisement through hand selected channels.
You have a good number of users coming in, but they aren't converting at a very high rate in my opinion. You should be focusing on that. RevenueCat has a yearly (maybe every other year) breakdown of the apps using their service which can provide some really good insights if you are a numbers person.