SlideME Revenue Share
Submitted by SlideMEteam on Thu, 10/01/2009 - 00:47
At SlideME, we introduced the highest payouts for developers in the industry, with typical payouts of 95%. The remaining 5% went directly to the payment processor. Our position has always been not to make money on downloads. Sadly, those days are coming to an end.
We naively envisioned that developers and content would arrive in large numbers on SlideME due to our global billing support, which Google lacked. And with this content, we expected we would line up operator support and white-labeling of our solution. After 12 months, this has yet to happen.
While we have had fantastic growth, nearly doubling content in the last two months, we still have only 3% of the applications found in Android Market and that is the yardstick operators measure us by.
We have fairly high fixed costs to support global billing, so we now have to make the regrettable decision to either take a revenue share or to shut down global billing.
As of October 7th, we will start taking a 30% revenue share to help cover expenses. This will not affect any sales prior to that. We will be informing developers of this through e-mail explaining the situation and asking for continued support.
Undercut Google?
I think maybe you should make the cut less than Google - perhaps 20%? I was literally in the process of putting my games up onto SlideME, but this for me means there is no longer an incentive to have to manage multiple accounts, app versions, and all else that comes with multiple distribution methods.
Having said that, I understand the need to make this move and wish you luck with it.
No incentive? You know, us
No incentive? You know, us folks outside the Android Market blessed territories also have money to spend, even if there's a crisis on :)
better than no alternative?
I believe that the folks at SlideMe are entitled to at least be able to sustain their costs, if not make some profit out of maintaining this application distribution channel. Besides, 70% is still enough to make this alternative worth while, especially since Google doesn't offer global billing support. Also I think it is wise not to keep all your eggs in one basket, meaning that relying only on the Android Market for making revenue out of your applications is not a surefire way to make business.
We will definitely take
We will definitely take developer feedback into consideration, as we don't wish to have developers to stop uploading paid applications. I can't guarantee anything now but we are cranking numbers and working on other ways to reduce costs. Any developers with feedback on this, please let us know.
Makes sense
As a Canadian this service offers far more than Google does (save for the market share of course). To be honest I was skeptical at the 5% rate and would prefer to pay the going rate for a decent service.
It's still 70% more than I'm getting from Google.
Before or after taxes?
I don't seems to have received an e-mail about this, so perhaps someone can tell me whether the revenue share is taken before of after taxes, or is SlideME / mobentoo paying the taxes out of their part of the revenue?
Revenue share is temporarily
Revenue share (the SlideME portion) is temporarily on hold until we communicate the final details to all developers.
Works for Me
I hate to say that I don't have a problem with more money being taken from me but I actually don't mind paying the same (or perhaps even a little less) than I do for the Android Market. My only goal with SlideME was to make my app available to users who don't get the Android Market. So far, I have seen sales that can be counted on one hand (which is nearly 100% less than the Android Market). But my true goal was to put my app up here even if only a few people needed it.
I also assume that if I, and others like me, continue to keep our app(s) listed with SlideME that we will eventually see it pay off. The way I see it, it only takes me about two or three minutes to add my updates to SlideME so why not make it available. It is a small time investment into what will hopefully pay off. And if not, the risk was next to nothing for me. So I say to other developers, list your app(s) with SlideME. If say sell well, great. If not, do it for the future.
If SlideME has 3% now, it can only grow. Furthermore, by not listing your app(s) you insure that SlideME will never be successfully. It's a win/win for developers. You list it. If it sells, you make money. If it doesn't, you've literally "wasted" only a couple of minutes. But if you list, you help it succeed and then we all succeed. If SlideME suddenly has 25%+ of the apps listed on the Android Market, everybody benefits. The consumer benefits by having the ability to purchase your app(s) where they once were not able to do so. Developers benefit two-fold. One, Google will be forced to improve or even change some of their policies. Two, you make money. One way of doing things is never a good thing.
When given the option, I prefer choice. It's why we use Android devices rather than iPhones.
Cheers,
AAC
How about Paypal?
At least as an option? It may make the paid applications more widely available, and is easier to set up for many (already having gone through the credit card verification once at Paypal).