In this article, I'm going to share with you some ballpark figures on how much money my chrome extensions, Merch Wizard and KDP Wizard, made me. I'll also talk a bit about how I generated that income and what my experience was like creating and selling these extensions.
Finally, I'll discuss how I made more than all the subscription income combined when I sold and exited from my biggest chrome extensions.
Here are the topics I'll be touching on in this article:
- Developing Free Extensions In The Early Days
- My First Paid Chrome Extension
- Introducing Merch Wizard
- Introducing KDP Wizard
- Subscription Income
- Cash Lump Sum Exit Income
- How To Get Started Developing Your Own Profitable Chrome Extensions
Developing Free Extensions In The Early Days
I was a 20-year veteran developer, climbing the ranks from junior to tech director. However, when I got to the "top," it wasn't everything I had dreamed of. It was chaotic, unpleasant, and unfulfilling.
I started reading self-improvement books, and the one that had the most significant impact was Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.
Because of that book, I began exploring methods to generate additional passive income outside of my day job. I tried selling on Amazon and fulfilment by Amazon for a brief time, but it wasn't for me.
It did, however, lead me to a new platform on Amazon called Merch by Amazon. The Merch platform enables designers to upload designs and list them on Print On Demand items from numerous Amazon markets. I started creating Merch designs and received some small monthly royalties.
Merch's user interface was quite rudimentary when it was first released. It was difficult and time consuming to try to keep track of a portfolio of goods and designs on various marketplaces in its early stages.
At that point, I had the realization that I could use my skills in software development to create chrome extensions that would make life better for Merch creators!
I started off by building a few free chrome extensions that helped me out as a Merch By Amazon creator. I offered these to the Merch community for free, and they quickly became popular in the Merch community.
From there, I decided to take things a step further and start monetizing my extensions by selling them on the Chrome Web Store.
My First Paid Chrome Extension
To alleviate some of my own frustrations with the Merch UI, I created a few free chrome extensions. In exchange for customer email addresses, I distributed these early chrome extensions at no cost.
I then created my first paid chrome extension called Merch Batch Editor. It wasn't the best-looking app, but users still responded positively to it. I charged a one-time price of $12.99 for this extension.
But I had very low expectations that anyone would want to buy it, even with the low price. After all, I wasn't going to advertise anything to it; I'd just rely on organic traffic methods. However, this extremely basic tool soon generated over $3,000 in sales!
Merch Batch Editor was my first paid chrome extension, which I completed in one weekend. Consequently, it made me over $3k
This small app was a stepping stone to my more significant chrome extensions. It helped me build trust with users and establish myself as a reliable app developer in the community.
Introducing Merch Wizard
After my initial success, I had a lightbulb moment whilst I was out walking my dog in my local park. I wondered if I could build an app that combined the functionality of my previous apps with a new way of organizing the ever-growing and unmanageable portfolio of products that Merch sellers faced. Soon after this, my flagship app Merch Wizard was born!
I quickly put together an MVP and released it in less than 3 months. I told all the users of my free tools about the app via email and posted announcements in relevant Facebook communities.
I was thrilled with how the launch went, and I got some wonderful feedback and requests for new features that make me want to keep developing the app.
I knew that if I worked hard enough, I could one day quit my day job. So, I put all of my efforts into developing an app. Even though it was a lot of work, I loved doing it because I knew it would pay off in the end.
I dedicated myself to working hard on developing and marketing the app, as well as making cuts with my family in order to create a reserve fund. I decided to take the leap after a particularly lucrative Black Friday sale, deciding to work full-time on Merch Wizard for the first time.
Introducing KDP Wizard
I went on to build a second app, KDP Wizard for Kindle Direct Publishing sellers. The Merch Wizard users were basically begging for similar functionality that Merch Wizard had, but for the KDP platform.
As such, after several months of development KDP Wizard was launched. It's an app that helps users with the design, listing, and promotion of their Kindle books. The app was very well-received in the KDP community.
Subscription Income
For both chrome extensions, I built up a solid base of monthly recurring revenue customers. Additionally, there were also many subscribers to the annual plans which had been offered at a discount during seasonal sale periods.
In addition to the subscription income, I have also sold my chrome extensions as one-off lifetime deals which I've sold from $249 all the way up to $699 (yes, you're reading that correctly, seven hundred dollars for one of my chrome extensions 🤯). Here's a screenshot of someone buying at $699, always a sweet email to receive!
On rare occasions, such as Black Friday I'd offer discounts on the lifetime deals to inject some cash into the business. I recommend avoiding lifetime deals if possible as it's a short-term high, but a customer you need to support for life. This also counts against you in any exits you might have planned in the future.
All in all, the total monthly recurring revenue was around $10,000 a month. As chrome extensions run locally, there were very few fixed server costs to absorb as the user count increased. Also, as I was using purely organic traffic, the majority of this income (70-80%) was profit.
Cash Lump Sum Exit Income
However, larger than all my subscription income combined was the lump sum payment I received when I sold and exited from my apps. It was a multi six-figure exit and was life-changing for my family and me.
Many people don't realise how valuable an asset a profitable SaaS app is. I have an in-depth article on how to value and sell a Micro SaaS app which talks about the process and my experience in more detail.
However, to give you a simple worked example, imagine you have built your chrome extension's monthly net profit up to $5k a month. Depending on several factors, a multiplier of 40x-60x would be applied to give you an approximate valuation of ($5k x 50x) of $250,000. Not bad huh!
Of course, if you can scale that up to hitting $10k-$20k profit a month, the numbers starts getting really interesting as you could be looking at a seven-figure exit.
*So, back to answering the original question in the title “How Much Money I Made Developing Chrome Extensions” ….
*
Through hard graft, laser focus and a passion for maintaining a happy user base I was able to earn multiple six figures in subscription income. Due to the upward trending KPIs I achieved a 57x multiplier on my exit.
And the number you’ve been waiting patiently for ….
In total, I have generated over $500,000 in revenue from my Chrome Extensions
How To Get Started Developing Your Own Profitable Chrome Extensions
I've been developing Chrome extensions for over five years and have earned six-figure subscription revenue on numerous occasions. I made considerably more than that when I sold and exited my largest Chrome extensions.
If you're thinking about getting started with creating Chrome Extensions, I've put up a guide at the Ultimate Guide To Developing Chrome Extensions: Everything You Need to Know.
Top comments (0)