I reached out to 50 app developers about monetization — here’s what I learned

Hey everyone 👋

Over the past few days, I’ve been reaching out to indie app developers to understand how they monetize their apps.

I sent around 50 emails and tried different approaches (some worked, some didn’t 😅).

Here’s what I’m noticing so far:

Most developers rely on ad networks

Revenue is often unpredictable unless you have scale

There’s very little control over advertisers or pricing

Some developers seem okay with it, but many are clearly not satisfied — especially smaller apps.

This got me thinking:

what if app owners could connect directly with advertisers instead of relying on ad networks?

So I started building something around this idea: Admesio

It’s still very early, but I’ve already seen a few developers sign up and add their apps, which is encouraging.

Right now I’m trying to validate one thing:

👉 Would developers actually want more control over monetization?

👉 Or are ad networks “good enough” despite their issues?

I’d really appreciate your thoughts on this 🙌

Also curious:

what’s currently working best for you — ads, subscriptions, or something else?