How To Make Money From an App: Top 11 Strategies

Turning an app idea into a steady income stream is more achievable than ever—if you know the right monetization strategies. From in-app advertising to premium subscriptions, there are proven methods that successful app creators use to generate revenue.

One powerful approach covered here is building your money-making app with Adalo—a no-code app builder for database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps—one version across all three platforms, published to the Apple App Store and Google Play. With built-in Stripe integration for seamless payments, Adalo gives you everything you need to launch a monetizable app quickly.

What matters most is app success: launching fast as an MVP and reaching the biggest audience possible. By publishing to both app stores, you gain access to billions of potential users and can leverage push notifications to drive engagement and revenue.

How To Make Money From an App: Build With Adalo

Before you comb through our strategies, you'll need to get an app builder that's flexible enough to create any money-making app. We've got the perfect platform: Adalo. Adalo is a no-code app builder for database-driven web apps and native iOS and Android apps—one version across all three platforms, published to the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Don’t have any programming, coding, or technical skills? Excellent, because Adalo is a no-code app-building platform that’s super easy to use. If you can create an Instagram account, you’ve got the skills to use Adalo.

Adalo’s Native Mobile Power: Integrations for Monetizing Your App 

But don’t you dare think Adalo skimps on power because of its simplicity? Adalo has all the tools, templates, and plugins you’ll need to ensure your app runs impeccably. You can leverage Adalo’s Zapier integration so users can access 1,000s of third-party subscriptions from their app. 

Importantly, Adalo has a Stripe integration that allows you to take payments with ease.

Adalo's (soon to be prompt-enabled) agnostic builder lets you publish the same app to the web, native iOS, and native Android, all without writing a line of code or rebuilding. If your plan is mass distribution through the app stores' vast marketplaces, then this is a great option versus many of the vibe-coding builders out there today.

The Apple App Store and Google Play Store collectively have billions of users globally, making them key platforms to reach a vast audience.

Get Adalo’s free version and start tinkering.      

Strategy 1: Leverage In-App Advertising

Integrating ads is one of the most popular ways to learn how to make money from apps. You can do this conveniently by using ad platforms like Google AdMob, Facebook Audience Network, or Smaato. Once you’ve found the right ad platform, follow these steps:

1. Choose the right ad formats for your app, such as banners, interstitials, or rewarded videos.

2. Optimize ad placement in logical and convenient areas to avoid disrupting the user experience.

3. Test and monitor ad placement, gather user feedback, and adjust as needed to maximize revenue.

Examples of Apps Using In-App Advertising for Inspiration

• Candy Crush Saga is an adored game and perennially downloaded app that mixes videos, interstitials, and banner ads while people play. 

• Spotify is an audio-player app that leverages banner ads and audio/video ads that play between songs, podcasts, or shows. 

• Flipboard is a news and social media app that injects banner ads and video ads into articles, making it part of the reader’s experience. 

Strategy 2: Offer In-App Purchases

App users make an in-app purchase whenever they buy virtual goods, additional features of an app, or premium content. When it comes to making money from phone apps, here are a few examples of in-app purchases:

• Sell additional resources like digital gold, weapons, or lives in a game.
• Offer credits to unlock premium features, such as buying foreign currency in a finance app.
• Provide compelling offers to enhance the user experience, like purchasing coins to write reviews in a social media app.

Adalo makes adding in-app purchases extremely simple: Just get the IAPHUB integration and read through Adalo’s directions, and you’re all set.

Examples of Apps Using In-App Purchases for Inspiration

• Tinder, the popular dating app, lets you buy additional features like unlimited swipes.

• Audible, an audiobook and podcast app, lets you buy credits that can be exchanged for audiobooks in addition to its subscription model. 

• Fortnite, a gaming app, lets you purchase skins, weapons, and other products that can help you succeed in the game. 

Strategy 3: Implement a Freemium Model

First, provide a free version with basic features, which should attract a larger user base. After some time, users will see your app’s value — capitalize on this and give them the option of buying advanced features or even one-time purchases.  

Examples for Inspiration

• LinkedIn is a career-based social networking app that offers paid features such as advanced job searches, the opportunity to connect directly with recruiters, and more. 

• Grammarly is a free grammar-checking app that provides more services, such as AI suggestions, at a premium price. 

• Dropbox is a storage app that provides all users with free 2GBs but allows users to pay for more space and access their accounts from multiple devices. 

Strategy 4: Use a Subscription Model

A subscription model charges users a recurring fee for access to your content or services. Usually, users pay a fee every month or quarter to access your products. To provide different options, you can offer tiered subscription plans with varying levels of access. 

Adalo supports subscription payments via its Stripe integration. Just follow Adalo’s simple directions to set it up.

Examples for Inspiration

• Netflix charges a monthly subscription fee for its movie streaming service.

• The Economist charges a quarterly subscription fee for access to its content.

Strategy 5: Sell Physical Products

Create an e-commerce app to sell your products directly to consumers. The app should be visually appealing and feature several screens featuring your products.

You can sell a general selection of products, like children’s clothing, or niche products, like gis and rashguards, for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (BJJ) practitioners.

Once again, Adalo’s got your back when it comes to building an e-commerce app. Besides the run-of-the-mill Stripe integration, you can also use Adalo’s Zapier integration to take payments from PayPal, Square, and more.

Don’t forget — you’ll need a delivery service, which Adalo offers via its Zapier-Easyship integration. 

Examples for Inspiration

• Hyperfly is an online store selling BJJ gis, rashguards, bags, and more.

• Amazon is the OG of e-commerce.

• FARFETCH is a niche luxury fashion app.   

Strategy 6: Offer a White Label Solution

Many businesses encounter issues daily — herein lies an opportunity. Develop a versatile app that solves these issues and can be sold to businesses to boost their operations. You’ll need to ensure that your app template can be scaled to reach as many customers as possible.

Market your white-label app to agencies, entrepreneurs, and businesses, and use Adalo’s pre-existing templates to start creating your app. 

Ideas for Inspiration

• A Salon Booking App: You could create a general booking app for salons of all types, like hair and nail salons or even med spas. 

• Restaurant App: You could build a booking and takeout app that restaurants can seamlessly integrate into their operations. Adalo’s messaging, scheduling, and GPS for delivery features make this possible.  

Strategy 7: Monetize with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing involves promoting third-party products or services within your app by writing reviews, creating visual content featuring them, and more. For instance, your fitness app could feature videos of you using a certain brand’s equipment while providing a positive review.

Through affiliate marketing, you'll earn commissions on sales generated through the referral links found on your app.

Examples for Inspiration

• TripAdvisor is a travel app that allows users to be affiliates by recommending hotels, restaurants, and other destinations. 

• Ibotta is a grocery app that provides commission for items sold in your online store.

• MyFitnessPal recommends affiliated products to the social network feature and gets paid by affiliates for doing so.  

Strategy 8: Collect User Donations

Create an app that provides users with value for free but allows them to support your efforts through voluntary donations. For instance, several podcasters and other content creators leverage a user-donation monetization strategy.

You can accept payments by integrating a donation button with Adalo’s Stripe integration or inserting a link to a Patreon account.

 Examples for Inspiration

• Wikipedia is an enormous online resource that takes donations from users.

• Blender is an open-source 3D computer graphics tool that earns much of its income from donations. 

Strategy 9: Create a Marketplace

Instead of actually selling products or services, develop an app that allows users to buy and sell them and charges a commission or listing fee for each transaction.

Adalo has templates that you can use to create your marketplace: 

• The Product Hunt Clone Template

• Salesworthy Clone Template

• The Facebook Clone

Examples for Inspiration

• Poshmark is an app that allows users to buy and sell clothing.

• Airbnb, the behemoth app that allows people to find a place to stay from landlords’ listings, is actually a marketplace. 

• Turo is a marketplace app that lets people rent out their cars.    

Strategy 10: Offer Paid App Downloads

To make money using paid app downloads, charge users a one-time fee when they download your app. Because this requires an upfront cost for the user, you’ll need to market your app effectively and ensure that it’s optimized to land in the top search results on the app stores.

Not sure where to begin when it comes to marketing your app? Then look at our app promo guide — it’s full of tips and strategies you can employ as soon as your app is up in the app stores.

Examples for Inspiration

• Afterlight is a paid photo-editing app. 

• Goodnotes 5 is a note-taking app that offers a subscription model and one-time payments.  

Strategy 11: Provide Consulting or Services

If you’re an expert in a niche area or industry, such as copper trading or dropshipping, create an app that offers your knowledge as consulting services. Your app can offer online courses, webinars, or even live chats.

Create both free and gated content and charge users for access. You can also offer one-on-one meetings through your app via Zapier’s Zoom integration to coach clients in real time. 

Create a booking service with Adalo’s booking template and integrate a payment system to schedule client meetings and get paid.

Examples for Inspiration

• BetterHelp is a mental health app that connects users with licensed therapists for consultations and ongoing therapy sessions.

• Coach.me is a life-coaching app that helps you make decisions wherever you go. 

• Yousician is for aspiring guitarists, bassists, pianists, or ukulele players. It provides lessons to kick-start your musical hobby or career.   

Build Your Next App with Adalo

Are you unsure how to incorporate some of the key features needed to monetize your app, like in-app purchases or subscription options? Or perhaps you’re working with a development agency but want more control over the process?

Adalo is the perfect solution. It’s a no-code mobile app builder that empowers you to create native mobile and web apps without writing a single line of code. Whether you need push notifications, geolocation, or custom features like referral programs, Adalo offers everything you need with easy drag-and-drop functionality.

If you're committed to learning how to make money from an app and staying ahead of the competition, it’s crucial to adapt to your users' evolving needs quickly. With Adalo’s intuitive platform, you can implement new features and updates in minutes or hours — not days or weeks.

Start Building Your App with Adalo for Free.

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