Pricing information can be found here:
| Service | Cost |
|---|---|
| App listing | Free! |
| Success Fee* | 15% |
| Minimum Success Fee | $150 |
| Code Review* (optional) | $100 (Basic) or $250 (Advanced) |
| App Feature on the Homepage | $25 for 1 day or $100 for 5 days |
*Success Fee – This is how we make money, pay our bills, and continue to provide this service! A “Success Fee” is taken out of the total amount given to the seller and is only executed upon the successful sale of an app. If your app does not sell you have no costs.
*Code Review – This is an optional service we provide to buyers. If you elect this option, after the auction has ended we will send the code of the app you purchased to a third party partner of ours who will review and essentially QA test it. This will simply make sure that the app does in fact do what was advertised. This will not give insight into the quality of the code, but rather just the function of it.
For apps under $5,000 we accept all major credit cards. For apps at or above $5,000 we require a bank wire, as this is the most secure form of payment.
Sellers receive payment after the entire transaction is complete and deemed successful by all parties (i.e. when the app is transferred and both the buyer and seller confirm everything is as it should be). You can adjust your Payout Preference here by choosing a Check (Free), Bank Wire ($12), or PayPal. Once this is identified and we have received the payment from the seller along with all the other transfer process components, we will send you your payment!
All asking prices and bids are made in United States Dollars ($USD). We will use a conversion rate in order to send out a payment in a different currency.
As you can imagine we take this very seriously, and 100% guarantee the security of your payment. In fact that is why we have you send payment initially to Apptopia, and not to the seller. This way we have full control over the process and can make sure you easily get your money back should there be any hiccups in the process. For more information about this please see our Terms of Service...
For every auction you will be receiving the app’s source code including any art assets, project files, and editor tools necessary to run the app. Some auctions include additional assets such as a Twitter account associated with the app or a website (domain). It all depends on the auction. Since you will now have the sole rights to the app, the seller can never use that same exact code or design again in the future.
There are no technical skills needed in order to acquire your own app. Alternatively, there are a lot of ways to use someone’s marketing and promotional skills after an acquisition. Once again, none of these skills are necessary and Apptopia has plenty of resources to help you monetize your app after the purchase is made! Please ask us how to make the most of your purchase and start generating revenue from your new app.
Our site has been integrated with Flurry Analytics. Now profit includes iAds downloads, in-app purchases, and money from sales. We are in the process of integrating with other advertising platforms as we speak.
You can easily download the app before purchasing to see how it is designed and most importantly, how it actually functions. If the app costs money, the seller will often provide you with a promo code upon request to test out the app for free. We have seen this occur in many cases.
In order to make a bid, all you need is a credit card on file once you register a username and password. This way, when the initial down payment of $150 is charged for your purchase, you will be able to claim the rights to your app. If your card happens to be fraudulent or is no longer in working order, the payment will not go through and the app will not be taken off the market.
You will need a developer account to transfer your new app to, which is simple to make. If you do not know how to do this, please reference our Buyer Power User Guide being added to the site very soon!
In certain situations yes, they will. In most situations however, our Plan B SDK will drive users to the new app. Plan B SDK is explained above. Unfortunately there are a handful of restrictions on Apple's end, which we have outlined here.
A code review is a way to know that the code you’re receiving is accurate and does what is advertised. This is basically a QA (quality assurance) test. You can pay a small additional fee to have an internal Apptopia partner of ours perform this code review. This is not the potential buyer reviewing the code, so there is no need for developers to worry about their code being stolen. The code review is done by a very close, exclusive partner of ours and this partner has very aggressive legal documentation signed with us, so your code is more than protected.
It costs $100 for a basic QA and $250 for a full review. This is paid once the code review is complete. If it’s successful we move on to the actual transfer, and if it’s not successful then we will push back on the developer to fix the errors. This is a 0% moneymaker. It simply accounts for the cost of 2 hours of a Sr. App Developer’s time to walk-through everything and make sure the app is functioning as it should be.
Although the actual process only takes 2 hours, you can plan on having this completed usually 24-48 hours after giving us the go-ahead to have it done.
To add an external account, simply register your Username and Password on Apptopia and go to Account Settings where you can sync your iTunes Connect and/or Android Developer console account. By clicking on “Add New,” you’ll be able to follow the directions and link your account(s) effortlessly.
There is no other way for us to A) provide the most up to date stats about your app, and continue to update them throughout the duration of your listing and B) Guarantee for 100% to the buyer that the sales/download numbers they are evaluating to make a buying decision are absolutely accurate and not doctored. Even if we let you send us screen shots of your analytics page, these are easily doctored. There is no more secure way. Your login details are taken very seriously. We use SSL security, encryption, and tokens to make sure of it.
Altering the price of an app and changing information about your listing is something you can now do manually. It is however important to note that you will not be able to raise the reserve price or take an app down once a buyer has already bid on your app.
If your app does not sell, it will be re-listed automatically unless you inform us to take it down. This happens every 21 days, which is the length of each auction. You will be notified every time this happens. We also encourage you to assess why it may not have sold and make the appropriate changes to your listing. For example, maybe it was the wrong timing or priced too high. We’re always here to help you if you need advice on making the most of your re-listing.
No, unfortunately this is something we do not support right now, nor something we plan to support in the near future. The problem with this is that we have no insight into the quality of your work, and a buyer can not A) see any data to make an educated decision or B) download your app and get a feel for it.
In this case, please contact support@apptopia.com with a link to your listing and a screenshot of the actual stats. As soon as we verify them, we’ll make the appropriate changes.
When listing an app, if you check multiple app boxes, this will create a bundled listing. This means you will be selling a bundle of say 2 or 3 apps for one price. We recommend using the bundle feature (i.e. checking multiple boxes) when you are selling the paid and free version of the same app.
If you are trying to just sell 3 apps individually, you should check one box at a time, and go through the entire process for that app. Then loop back to your “My Apps Page” and repeat this process for each app you want to sell.
If you have an app for both platforms, you are obligated to sell the IP to both when creating a listing. If you feel it is fair, you can price your bundle higher to include both.
Similar to having one app across multiple platforms, if you’re selling the free version of an app and you also have a paid version associated with it, you are obligated to sell both in the bundle as well. It would not make sense to keep these separate after the sale because of their similar programming. When selling an app you are selling the brand as a whole.
Documentation is not required, but preferred. Thorough documentation leads to higher pricing as well as repeat customers. We have seen this occur with customers in the past. It’s especially helpful when there is a buyer who may not fully understand the coding, but again it is up to the developer.
Right now, you have the option to feature your app on the home page. It costs $25 for 1 day or $100 for 5 days. Apps featured on the homepage have been known to receive SIGNIFICANTLY more views, and have been acquired much faster than apps that haven’t received this type of visibility.
You are required to provide the certificate key because without this it will strand all of your users, and not allow the buyer to market to them and push out updates. Since the users and traffic are very much a big part of the sale, this must be provided to the buyer. However, we were conscious of this situation before starting Apptopia and have taken some major legal steps to protect you (in a case like this where you have one certificate key for all apps, versus having app specific ones).
If you look at our Purchase and Sale Agreement (which you can always view in your Transaction Center), and look specifically at Section #9, it talks all about Certificate Keys. You will note we have used strong language to protect the seller. If the buyer was to somehow ever find a way to do something malicious with this key (and it would be very difficult for them to do so) they would be immediately legally liable for ALL LOSSES…including legal fees, and including the ENTIRE value of your portfolio. In fact, legal protection like this is a massive reason people work with Apptopia, as we provide a lot of protection for our sellers.
Sure, we have tons of friends and connections in the mobile industry and would be more than happy to connect you with any resources you need. Of course development is one resource request that comes up most often, but we also have marketing, advertising, monetization, and design partners. Give us a call at 855-Apptopia ext. 3! Tell us what you need and we will make an introduction right away.
Yes, you are now able to pay a small fee along with your app purchase for a certain amount of extra work hours from the developer who initially programmed the app. We will help you sort out these negotiations or find you a different person to help with these changes after your purchase. The cost completely depends on the situation.
Absolutely! We actually get this a lot, as people realize the importance of having legal protection, security, escrow services, and a transfer specialist to advise you through the entire process. We will charge a reduced fee of 5-7% for this service. Please just email Transfers@apptopia.com to begin the process! Think of it as broker or brokerage being an unbiased middleman between two parties.
If you’re interested in speaking with someone who has bought or sold an app using Apptopia already, just ask us and we can connect you with one of the hundreds of people already finding success on our site!
When a seller decides to list their app for sale, they are entering into a legally binding contract to sell that app (and transfer all of the essential components), assuming the auction closes with a buyer that has agreed to pay equal to or greater than the asking price. If a seller refuses to follow through with transferring the source code and other essential app files, their Apptopia account will be canceled and their seller privileges will be completely revoked. In addition, the buyer has the right / option to enforce the contract in a court of law.
We take this situation very seriously as it’s unjust to meet a buyer on Apptopia and try to take a deal offline to avoid paying the 15% success fee. Not only do most buyers disagree to this due to the beneficial services we provide along with your transfer, we also monitor our site very closely and are able to easily find out if you attempt to do this. We would like to emphasize that you sign an agreement with Apptopia when you list your app saying that even if you sell your app offline (to a buyer met on Apptopia) we are legally due our percentage. We, much like you are hustling every single day, to build and maintain a business that adds significant value to developers and the app/mobile community as a whole, so we hope that you take note since we have not been afraid to take action on this in the past.
Currently we only sell iOS and Android mobile apps. Once we have a high demand from customers for other types of apps, we will gladly adjust our model and integrate those apps into our marketplace.
Many apps have been sold on Apptopia that were built using Unity3D, Corona SDK, Cocos2D, etc. All we ask is that you are forthcoming about the platform used in your listing. Note that these tools cannot be code-free, visual drag & drop tools because during an app transfer, you must be able to provide a .zip file containing your code.
The highest price you should ever list your app for on Apptopia is $150,000 and the lowest is $500. We have found that unless your app has substantial revenues or extremely high traction, it will not sell for more than the $10,000-$20,000 range. Be aware of this when pricing your app.
We are in the process of building a tool that easily (and automatically) provides you with an app valuation recommendation. In the meantime please feel free to email Valuation@apptopia.com with specific questions. If you do choose to email us, please make sure you provide as much financial / download / real data as you possibly can. Otherwise we will not be able to accurately help you out and you will end up pricing your app incorrectly.
Also, take a look at the front page of our site under Recently Sold to get a feel for what types of apps have been successfully acquired on Apptopia so far. This is a GREAT resource to get a sense of how to go about pricing your apps. You’ll be able see where buyers are looking to spend their money most right now when it comes to apps as well as what level of traction and design buyers expect at each price point.
We will manually delete your account for you immediately upon request for any reason – just send us an email.
Plan B SDK is a custom Apptopia solution we’ve built that you can download and use for free. The SDK solves the problem of transitioning iOS users to the new version of an app. Specifically, Plan B SDK will drive users of the “old version” of your app to update it to the new version (i.e. the version that lives in the new buyers account). Through our experience and extensive testing, we have found that this tends to convert around 60-70% of the active users. We will consistently be working to bring this number up, but it’s a great start (and a lot better than 0% of users!).
We try and make the transfer process as simple as possible. Here is a high level overview:
This very much depends on the specific situation, as well as the platform you’re using. However, in our experience transfers with Android take between 1-3 days (with zero down time). Transfers with Apple tend to be anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks (again dependent on the transfer circumstances).
For all completed transactions we list the name of the app, the date it was sold, and the price it was sold for. We only use this information to populate our "Recently Sold" section. You have the option to request that this information not be publicized during the transfer process. These will be decided on a case-by-case basis and you must notify your assigned transfer specialist of your request.