A trend I’ve noticed recently is more designers and developers are openly discussing financial details, which I applaud. This sort of transparency benefits everyone — it helps the web industry see what is possible and it educates clients on the investment required to create a website or app.
Below is a mix of articles that reveal numbers on specific projects, hourly rates, and annual income summaries. This is not an exhaustive list but I will continue to add related articles as I find them. If you know of more, feel free to share them in the comments.
- Drew Wilson talks about the height of Pictos and earning around $15k to $17k per month. The whole conversation is interesting but skip to 12:35 if you want to get right to the money talk: http://www.narwhals.cool/4
- SFCD goes into great detail about the cost of an app: http://sfcd.com/blog/cost/
- Sean Wes routinely shares insight on revenue and has many podcasts relative to this subject. Here’s one to start with: http://seanwes.com/podcast/060-how-learn-lettering-made-80000-in-24-hours-with-the-first-10k-in-30-minutes/
- FocusLab explains how networking on Dribbble generated $800k in one year: http://focuslabllc.com/journal/high-fives-a-toast-to-dribbble
- Cameron Moll gets honest about the economics of a Kickstarter project: https://medium.com/@cameronmoll/the-economics-of-a-kickstarter-project-5b374cfeb43c
- Sam Soffes has his hourly rate and other detailed hiring info listed directly on his website. I like the upfront honesty and it’s something I’d like to see more designers and developers do: http://hire.soff.es
- United Pixelworkers discuss income on (just over) a week of sales: http://blog.unitedpixelworkers.com/2014/08/15/some-numbers
- Jason Schuller shares his experience with building a WordPress theme business and lessons in pricing: https://medium.com/@jschuller/a-brief-history-of-a-wordpress-theme-business-3847e16fcba4
- Sam Jones talks about making $23k in 6 months from Creative Market: https://creativemarket.com/blog/2014/08/27/creative-market-6-months-and-23000-later
- Ivo Mynttinen gives a very detailed breakdown of his annual income as a freelancer: http://ivomynttinen.com/blog/freelance-business-report-2014/
- John O’Nolan wrote a lengthy summary on Ghost user statistics and how the open source product made $350k last year: http://blog.ghost.org/2014-report/
- Monument Valley offers a complete breakdown of their game’s sales and stats. You’ll likely be surprised by how much this app made (and how much it cost to create): http://blog.monumentvalleygame.com/blog/2015/1/15/monument-valley-in-numbers
- Lastly, if you haven’t read them already, I also reported on my earnings from Creative Market last year, as well as lessons and income from Design Kindle.