All Articles
Getting to the Real Revenue Number — A Pipeline that Reconciles AdMob, App Store, Google Play, and Stripe
Dashboard revenue and the money that actually lands in your account do not match. Here is an aggregation pipeline that absorbs currency, timezone, and the gap between estimated and finalized figures across four revenue sources — with the implementation and operating judgment from running six apps.
Design the Exit Before You Commit to a No-Code Mobile Platform
When you build an app business on a no-code tool, the first thing to plan is not the features but whether you can ever leave. Here is how to weigh lock-in risk for Rork and Rork Max from a portability standpoint.
Raising Your Subscription Price: How to Handle Existing Subscribers on the App Store and Google Play
Raise your subscription price without losing existing subscribers: break-even churn math, store consent flows, PRICE_INCREASE and EXPIRED handling, and cohort tracking.
When Should a Rork App Move Up to Rork Max? Deciding With Store Data, Not Aspiration
A framework for deciding whether the $200/month Rork Max tier is justified: three data-driven migration triggers, the case for staying on Expo, why June 2026 lowered the lock-in risk, and the practical steps once you do commit to the move.
Rork Max Pricing in 2026 — A Decision Guide by Project Type
A practical guide to choosing among Rork / Rork Max plans, framed as a break-even decision. Walks through three real user profiles — weekend developer, earning solo dev, and agency/startup — with the criteria that actually matter.
Expanding AdMob bidding demand without adding SDKs — what applying to 11 server-side partners taught me about 'enabled ≠ serving'
A working log of actually adding SDK-free, server-side bidding partners to AdMob's bidding sources: the difference between doc-type and form-type sign-up flows, how reCAPTCHA behaves, and the trap that 'partnership enabled' does not mean 'eligible to serve', told from a solo developer's point of view.
What Localizing My Wallpaper Apps' App Store Listings Taught Me — Translation Isn't the Hard Part, Being Read Locally Is
Field notes from localizing my wallpaper apps' App Store listings across many locales: where literal translation fell short, where the keyword field and screenshot copy actually moved the needle, and how I now prioritize localization as a solo developer.
Taking Inventory of Your AdMob Ad Units — All the Way to App Open Cooldown Design
When rewarded and interstitial units pile up and you can no longer tell which one fires on which screen, here is the inventory process I use, plus the design for adding a cooldown to an App Open ad that otherwise shows on every launch.
Two Weeks After Adding Pangle and Mintegral to My AdMob Waterfall — Notes on eCPM and Fill Rate
A record from a wallpaper app with over 50 million downloads: I added Pangle and Mintegral to my AdMob mediation, then compared two weeks of eCPM and fill-rate data. What improved, what didn't, and where the setup tripped me up.
I Turned Off My AdMob Floors and Revenue Collapsed — The Mediation Rules That Actually Worked Solo
A record of tuning AdMob mediation eCPM floors to real-world rates on a 50-million-download wallpaper app, and handling the end of Unity Ads waterfall support. Why you must not turn INT floors off, the 80% match-rate boundary, and a twice-monthly review routine.
The Day I Walked Away From $730/Month — Pulling AppLovin From 5 Apps After 11 Years of Crash Data
On 2026-05-26 I paused AppLovin and AppLovinMax Bidding + Waterfall across my entire iOS/Android catalogue (50M+ cumulative downloads) for INT, RWD, and RWI. This is the full record of the three lines of evidence I used to justify walking away from $730/month and the four-week evaluation framework I set up afterwards.
How I Layered Rewarded, Interstitial, and App Open Ads to Lift ARPDAU 1.4× on My Wallpaper App
Optimizing AdMob's three formats individually hit a ceiling — they were eating each other's impressions. After redesigning Rewarded, Interstitial, and App Open as a coordinated 3-layer system with strict role separation and an exclusion gate, ARPDAU climbed 1.4× over nine weeks. The full playbook, code, and weekly numbers.