When ShiftyJelly had one of its apps featured as Amazon ’s Free App of the 24-hour interval , they call up they may have hit the jackpot . turn out to have been more like main road looting .
About three months ago , we pose off on a little experimentation into the world of the Amazon App Store . Back then people were hailing it as the solution to the problem with the Google Market , industry pundits like Andy Ihnatko called it ‘ An Excellent Work in Progress ‘ .
Amazon ’s enceinte lineament by far , has been their Free App Of The Day promotion . publically their term say that they pay developers 20 % of the asking price of an app , even when they give it away innocent . To both consumer and naive developers alike , this seems like a large chance to make something rare in the Android world : genuine money . But here ’s the foul closed book Amazon do n’t want you to know , they do n’t pay developers a single penny . Before beingfeatured by Amazon , you get an e-mail like this one :
As you may already have sex , the Free App of the Day offer arrangement is one of the most visible and valuable place on the Amazon Appstore . We would like to include your app “ [ name take ] ” in our Free App of the Day calendar . We have seen wondrous outcome from this advancement spot and think it will make for you a great peck of convinced reviews and traffic . It is an chance to build your brand especially in tie with a stigma like Amazon ’s . The current price of this placement is at 0 % rev share for that one day you are placed .
The emphasis there was really added by them in their email . So we asked them to confirm , what seemed a ridiculous proposition :
Thanks for emailing us . If I study this aright you ’d like to give away our applications programme for free , and make up us nothing ? That ’s very generous of you , but we like being paid for our work . I appreciate that Amazon is attempt to build up it ’s store , and get more users , but the job is at the moment you have the repute of being ‘ The place where I get my free apps ’ and for a developer like us who does n’t put advertising into our program , that can only be a bad thing .
We ’d be happy to reconsider if you decided to pay us the 20 % that we agree to in our original developer accord , but this unexampled one seems to favour only you , at the expense of us ?
To which they responded :
Thanks for your reception . The Free App of the Day promotion is the most valuable and visible spot in the store . It hosted the launch of the likes of Angry Birds Rio , Plants v. Zombies and more . Amazon will not pick up any sales rev share from the Free App of the Day ; and in fact , with as the Free of the Day for one mean solar day , you will have a subsequent Appstore main page emplacement for the following 14 days .
All these highly worthful placements are at no cost to you . We need to advertise your app and in exchange of the positioning , at the 0 % rev share for one day only .
All this seemed way too one sided to us , Amazon is being predatory here , and ask developers ( who are often desperate for pic ) to give away their app , to promote Amazon . A het argumentation crack out in our office about whether we should or not . I was firmly against , my concern partner for . In the end we correspond that we had entered the earthly concern of Android development as an experiment , and it would seem goofy not to lend more data to the experiment we were lead . The 24-hour interval of our promotion number :
That ’s aright , Amazon gave away 101,491 written matter of our app ! At this point , we had a few seconds of fervor as well , had we mis - read the email and really earned $ 54,800 in one day ? We would have done if our public accord was in spot , but we can now sustain that thanks to Amazon ’s secret back - door deal , we made $ 0 on that day . That ’s right , over 100,000 apps kick in away , $ 0 made . Did the picture count for much in the days afterwards ? That ’s also a prominent no , the day after saw a blip in sales , followed by things going back to exactly where we bug out , deal a few apps a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . In fact Amazon decide to rub salt in the wounds a short further by discounting our app to 99 cents for a few days after the free furtherance . All we got was about 300 emails a day to respond over the blank of a few week , that give us tired and burn out . For all we be intimate most of the people who want our software , now have it . To contribute insult to injuryPocket Castsrelies on a server to parse podcast feeds ( tolerate clamant updates on your sound ) , and all these new users forced us to buy more computer hardware just to get together need . Hardware that we are going to have to stomach indefinitely at our own cost .
What make us disturbed though is the public sensing that Amazon pays developer to be featured . Every individual individual we demand on Twitter or via email think they were help developers out , and getting a free practical app . Amazon does nothing to dispel these rumours , in fact they put really restrictive clauses at the bottom of their e-mail , saying that no one is even allowed to discuss these back door deals they are doing . But that ’s not our only bitch with Amazon :
• Lengthy limited review clock time of anywhere up to 2 calendar week ( I ’ve lose count of the amount of emails from people asking why our Google Market app is newer )
• Amazon gets to sic the price of your app to whatever they require , without any input from you , or even the chance to spurn their price
• Amazon re - pen your verbal description , and in ours they even made up affair like ‘ add up to 100 podcasts ’ . No approximation where on solid ground they capture that number from
• Amazon do n’t bring home the bacon error reports like Google do making it laborious to fix errors
• They do n’t yet support Google’snew multiple APK initiative
• Amazon pays far later than Google does , and to date we have n’t receive any cheques from them , even though we are heel as being ‘ pay ’
• US Only
• Much less tangible - time gross revenue information than Google
• Update : ( and this one surprised us ) you ca n’t remove apps from their fund ! You have to postulate them for permit via an email . Every other storage let you remove apps from sale .
bring these affair up , and we were starting to ask ourselves , why on terra firma are we in job with these guy cable ?
We can see the counter statement here , that we agreed to Amazon ’s terminal figure , even if they were underhand and secret , so we merit everything we got . Perhaps . I guess it ’s just lucky for us that this was an experiment , and that we do n’t make our full time income from sell Android apps , but rather from developing for iOS . That said , we require to make a light viewpoint here , so that Amazon does n’t take advantage of those less fortunate than us .
So today we ’re draw a standpoint . Effective immediately we are slay ourselves from the Amazon Store . We’renot the only ones doing this .
To anyone who give for our app in the Amazon Store ( yes all 200 or so of you ! ) , we excuse for the incommodiousness . If you choose to get and join us in theGoogle Market , and want a refund for that purchase , we will be more than happy to hold . Contact us for more detail . To those who set about the app spare from Amazon , we ’re deplorable to say there wo n’t be any more updates . We wo n’t cripple your app in any way , it will keep on to exploit … but then if you like it that much , you could do worse than cast $ 2 our way .
• Yes we beget what we signed up for , that ’s not our beef . This article sums up our disputation better than we perhaps did : http://techcrunch.com/2025-03-08/amazons-appstore-youll-make-0-when-we-give-your-app-away-and-youll-like-it/
• Our app position in Amazon now says ‘ conquer ’ no idea what that means , but it does go a spot comical / sinister
• My personal favorite are the conspiracy theorists “ BUT YOU DIDN’T SHOW SALES AFTERWARDS , YOU make fun MUST HAVE MADE trillion ” . I was almost tempt to post “ Dang nab it , you pick up us red pass on ” as a prank , but no doubt that would just get out of hand . Here you go July sales ( we were have on the 27th of June , -10 points if you ask for June 28 - 30th , now you ’re just being silly ; -P ):
ShiftyJelly is a small team of Australian fluid developer specialize in iPhone and Ruby on Rails developing . They ’re made up of two full time developer , and a few part meter decorator . This post has been republish with permission fromthe ShiftJelly blog .
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