Noticky
Sticky notes that float above fullscreen apps on macOS
On May 22, I posted here that Noticky had made 15 sales in its first three days.
Ten weeks later:
150+ paid users
Roughly $1,000 in tracked revenue
$6 direct, $6.99 on the Mac App Store
Almost entirely organic
It’s still a small product, but it’s the first time I’ve built something that complete strangers consistently paid for.
The main thing I got wrong at launch was thinking I needed to sell every feature.
Noticky now has checklists, floating screenshots, Calendar and Reminders integrations, screen-sharing privacy, and MCP support.
But the sentence that sells it is still the same:
Sticky notes that stay above every window, even in fullscreen.
Reddit has been the strongest source of qualified traffic so far. Two posts generated around 12,400 views, 87 comments, 34 shares, and more than 500 visits to the site.
The posts weren’t really about launching an app. They were about the problem that made me build it. Every sticky note app I tried disappeared as soon as I entered fullscreen.
Product Hunt brought almost nothing.
I also spent around €15 testing Reddit ads. That produced 35 clicks, but I couldn’t attribute any sales to them.
Shipping requested features has still been useful for distribution. Screen-sharing privacy gave me something new to show. Calendar and Reminders did the same. This week, it was MCP support.
I don’t have product telemetry inside Noticky, so I can’t pretend to know exactly how much each feature improves retention. What I can see is that every meaningful update gives me another honest reason to talk about the product.
I also think I priced it too low.
My current plan is to move the Mac app to $9.99 when the iOS version launches. The iOS app will be $4.99. Both will remain one-time purchases.
The next target is 500 customers. Reddit helped me reach the first 150, but repeating the same launch post obviously won’t get me the next 350.
For anyone selling a one-time-purchase Mac app: which channel has kept bringing customers after the initial launch traffic faded?
Hey IH 👋
I'm a solo dev and I just launched Noticky — a menu bar sticky notes app for macOS.
The problem I was solving
I use fullscreen apps all day (IDE, browser, Figma). Every time I needed to check a note, I had to swipe back to the desktop, find the note, swipe back. Apple's Stickies can't float above fullscreen windows. Neither can most note apps.
What I built
Noticky lives in the menu bar and has one killer feature: Always on Top. Your notes float above everything, including fullscreen apps. You hit ⌘⇧N, type your note, and it stays visible while you keep working.
Other features: Markdown WYSIWYG, Smart Tags, iCloud Sync, Touch ID lock, export to .txt/.md/.pdf, templates, reminders.
macOS 15+ only. No Electron, no web wrapper — native Swift.
Pricing
$6 one-time. No subscription. I hate subscriptions for simple tools and figured other people do too.
Numbers (transparent)
- Launched 3 days ago
- 15 sales so far (~$87 gross)
- Conversion rate around 7-10% on qualified traffic
- $0 spent on ads — all organic so far
- Also on Product Hunt today (but honestly, with no existing audience it's quiet)
What I learned so far
- The "Always on Top" feature is what sells it. Every other feature is a nice-to-have. When I focused the landing page on that one thing, conversions went up.
- Launching without an audience is brutal. My PH launch got basically no traction because I had zero community beforehand. Building in public from day 1 would have been smarter.
- $6 one-time is a tough price point for sustainability but it removes all friction for buyers. Nobody hesitates at $6.
Ask
I'd love feedback on two things:
1. For other solo Mac devs — how did you find your first 100 customers after the launch spike died?
2. Is $6 leaving money on the table? I keep going back and forth on whether $9.99 would have been fine.
Site: https://noticky.app
Thanks for reading 🙏
Hey IH,
I've been working on Noticky, a menu bar sticky note app for macOS. Launching May 22 on Product Hunt.
The problem I kept having
I work in fullscreen all day — VS Code, Figma, Zoom. Every time I needed to check a note, I had to exit fullscreen or cmd-tab around to find it. macOS Stickies just vanishes behind everything. SideNotes hides in a drawer that closes when you click away. Nothing stays visible.
What Noticky does
One thing: your note stays on top of everything, even fullscreen apps. Hit Cmd+Shift+N from anywhere, type, done. The note stays pinned.
Also has markdown (live rendering, no preview mode), iCloud sync, touch ID lock, smart tags, export to pdf/md/txt. Native Swift, under 5MB.
Why $6 one-time
I looked at what people pay for macOS utilities and $6 felt right — cheap enough that you don't think twice, expensive enough that it's not "free with a catch". No subscription. I use FastSpring for payments since the Mac App Store takes 30% and I wanted to keep it simple.
The stack
- App: Swift, native macOS
- Landing page: Next.js + Tailwind on Vercel
- Payments: FastSpring
- Analytics: Umami (privacy-first, self-hosted)
- SEO: blog articles targeting "sticky notes mac", "always on top mac" etc
What I'd love feedback on
- Does the positioning make sense? ("the note that never disappears, even in fullscreen")
- Am I leaving money on the table at $6? Some people told me to charge more
- Any launch day tips from people who've done PH + multi-platform?
Site: noticky.app
Happy to share numbers after launch.
1 Comment
I like that the product didn't become easier to understand because it gained more features.
It became easier to understand because you found the problem people immediately recognized in their own experience. That's a very different kind of clarity than simply describing everything the product can do.