Becoming a mobile app reseller can be a highly lucrative income stream. But like any business venture, you need to ensure it’s actually profitable and worth pursuing.
There are certain factors that separate the highly profitable app resellers from the rest—and that’s exactly what we’ll cover in this guide.
You’ll learn what types of resellers make the most money and action steps for moving forward ensuring high profits.
The 3 Main Types of App Resellers
In the mobile app development space, there are essentially three main types of resellers. Understanding which bucket you fall into is crucial as you’re taking the next steps on your path to profitability.
1. Established Agencies
Existing agencies are the most profitable types of resellers because they’re not starting from scratch.
If you fall into this category, you’ll already have a list of clients that need mobile apps. Selling apps to your existing clients is so much easier than marketing from scratch.
Any agency that currently offers services to other businesses is a good candidate for becoming an app reseller. Marketing agencies, web development agencies, SEO agencies—the list goes on and on here.
You can easily double the lifetime value of your agency clients by tapping into your established relationships.
Some of you might already have clients asking for apps. This is how several agencies discovered Buildfire’s reseller program in the first place, like Social Connection Marketing.
2. Single App Resellers
This type of reseller isn’t as common, but it can be highly profitable when done correctly.
Rather than targeting the masses, you simply create a single app within a niche market. Then you clone that app for every new client, and just replace minor things like the color scheme, logos, and content.
For example, let’s say you want to create an app for real estate brokerages. Every broker is going to want the same core features and functions. So you don’t need to build this from scratch every time.
The same goes for dentists, restaurants, and churches. In each of these unique niche categories, the app’s core features will be nearly identical for every business within those industries. Dentists will all want some type of appointment booking feature. Restaurants will all need virtual menus and online ordering systems. Every church needs a schedule of events and mobile donation features.
Renaissance Ranch executed this strategy to perfection. They originally used Buildfire to create an app for their own health treatment facilities. It was so successful that they ended up becoming a reseller and now sell the app to over 50+ other treatment centers.
3. Savvy Entrepreneurs
Anyone who wants to make money selling mobile apps can become a reseller because it’s the path of least resistance.
You don’t need to learn how to code or hire a development team if you’re going this route. Simply find a no-code development platform that offers a white-label solution and use that to build and sell apps for other businesses.
That said, this type of reseller faces the most challenges compared to the other two.
Starting from scratch is tough because you don’t have an existing client base, and you don’t have a proven track record of success to use as your differentiator.
You may have to compete on price early on and take some concessions with thin margins to scale your business before you can really start earning high profits. I’m not saying this to discourage you or steer you away—it’s just a reality that you need to be aware of before you dive in with unrealistic expectations.
Why Mobile App Reselling is so Profitable
Compared to other things you can resell online, mobile apps are ideal for earning high profits for several reasons:
- High Demand: Businesses still need mobile apps, and the app development industry as a whole is growing at a 14.3% CAGR between now and 2030.
- Low Overhead: You don’t have to purchase inventory, rent office space, or hire a team of developers to become an app reseller. Simply pay the platform fee for the white-label software you’re using, which is affordable and easy to cancel at any time.
- Recurring Revenue: Resellers can continue earning monthly, quarterly, or recurring revenue from their clients after the initial build. Charging an ongoing maintenance fee is an easy way for your profits to grow exponentially for the lifetime of the app.
- Easy Upsells: Resellers can charge one-off upsells down the road for things like new features, re-designs, and additional resources.
- Low Barrier to Entry: As long as you’re using a no-code white label program, you don’t need any technical skills to become a reseller.
- High Margins: Many app resellers can break even after selling just one or two mobile apps. That’s enough to cover their platform costs, and everything else is pure profit.
At the end of the day, there are few (if any) other reseller categories that are so appealing from a profitability standpoint.
Even if you try to become a reseller and it fails, you won’t be out a ton of time or money.
Key Features to Look for in a Reseller Platform
Your success as a mobile app reseller will largely be defined by the platform you’re using. Some platforms set you up for success and profitability on day one, while others make things much more challenging.
To help you distinguish the good from the bad, here’s what you should focus on as you’re evaluating different systems:
- Cross-Platform Compatibility: You should be able to create an app for iOS and Android in a single build. The best reseller programs also support PWA (progressive web apps).
- Pre-Built Features and Plugins: Look for an extensive library of pre-built plugins that you can add to apps with a single click.
- Full Control Over Your Pricing: The reseller platform shouldn’t restrict or control what you charge to your clients. You pay a fee for using the platform, and you can charge as much as you want when you sell the apps to your clients.
- White Label Capabilities: The name or logo of the platform you’re using shouldn’t be anywhere on your apps or client-facing documentation.
- Pre-Built Templates: This gives you a head start when you’re building, as it’s much easier than starting from a blank slate. Industry-specific templates are a bonus and even more helpful.
- Strategic Consulting: The best app reseller programs will treat you like a partner and offer white-glove onboarding to help you succeed. They’ll make sure you understand the platform, all of its capabilities, and set you up for sky-high profits.
- Full Self Provisioning: In addition to building and selling apps to your clients, some reseller platforms also let you white label and resell their software. This would allow you to offer DIY app development to your clients who prefer to be a bit more hands-on instead of outsourcing the entire project.
- Simple Yet Robust Admin Management: At scale, it should be just as easy for you to manage all of your apps and clients from a single dashboard as it is when you’re first starting. This requires an admin platform that’s powerful but still easy to use.
- Customizable Features: What happens if your clients request a feature that isn’t pre-built in the platform’s plugin library? The best reseller platforms provide multiple customization options (while other cookie-cutter programs won’t be able to accommodate you).
If the reseller program you’re evaluating isn’t marketing these features, make sure you ask about them during a demo.
Not all of these may seem important when you’re first getting started, but they’re all crucial for long-term success and profitability as your business scales.
5 Steps to Become a Successful (and Profitable) App Reseller
Becoming a mobile app reseller is actually easier than most people realize. The five-step process below will help you get started ASAP while focusing on profitability from day one.
Everything else you can learn by doing and figure out as you go along.
Step 1 — Choose a Reseller Model Based on Your Strengths
It should be fairly obvious which of the three reseller categories best describes you. Each one will have a slightly different starting point based on your strengths.
- Established agencies should integrate app development as a natural extension of current services.
- Single app resellers need to identify their niche market—ideally, one that they already know and have experience in.
- Entrepreneurs starting from scratch should spend time doing market research to identify underserved segments and low-hanging fruit that others are ignoring.
Don’t try to be something that you’re not. Focus on what you’re good at, and follow the path of least resistance.
Step 2 — Select the Right Platform Partner
Choosing a reseller program is arguably the most important step because it’s the one thing you can’t really change later on.
Don’t rush into this decision, and make sure you’re working with a partner that checks all the boxes you’re looking for.
Refer back to the evaluation criteria that we covered earlier. This is an easy way to qualify potential candidates and narrow down your options.
Read More: How to Choose the Right App Reseller Program
Step 3 — Develop Your Pricing Strategy
There are a few different approaches that you can take when pricing your app development services. Common options include:
- One-time fee for the initial build, plus a recurring maintenance fee
- Tiered pricing based on features and capabilities
- All-inclusive pricing that includes platform fees, support, etc.
- Bundling app development with other agency services to enhance perceived value
None of these are set in stone forever, and you can always change them later on. Some resellers even mix and match these strategies.
You can also start to plan ahead for the types of fees that you’re going to charge and offer down the road—as this will help you focus on long-term profits. Just don’t get too caught up in this right now. If you’re stuck in the planning process forever, then you’ll never sell an app.
Step 4 — Create a Marketing Plan and Sales Pitch
How exactly are you going to market your app development services?
Start with the basics, like adding a dedicated landing page to your website. From there, you can send out email blasts, promote on social media, and even run some PPC ads.
Beyond the generic marketing, you should also create some client-specific sales pitches. It’s worth spending extra time on these, even if it means demoing certain features and adding a client’s logo to the demo.
This is another reason why established agencies have a huge advantage here. You already know who’s interested, their customers, their pain points, and their budgets. So these sales pitches should be easy.
Read More: How to Pitch a Mobile App to Your Clients
Step 5 — Resell Your First App
Do whatever you can to make that first sale.
The longer this takes, the more it will weigh on you, and you’ll start to feel more pressure. But getting it done ASAP will help you build confidence and set you up for success moving forward.
Your first app doesn’t need to be the most profitable thing you ever sell. That’s totally fine.
I’ve even seen some resellers take a slight loss or just barely break even on their first couple of apps. It’s worth it in the long run to do this because you’ll have an easier time selling similar apps, and you’ll learn from your mistakes along the way.
The Buildfire Advantage for Resellers
Buildfire’s reseller program is the best option for anyone who wants to make a profit selling apps.
You’ll have access to the exact same platform that’s been used to build and launch over 10,000+ mobile apps in virtually every industry.
Buildfire also has over 150+ pre-built plugins and 50+ professionally designed templates that make it easy to get started.
If your client needs a feature that isn’t available in the plugin marketplace, no problem. You can either develop the feature yourself using our developer-friendly SDK or reach out to our team to handle it for you.
From strategic consulting to publishing support and beyond, Buildfire truly treats white labelers like a partner. Book a consultation and get a free white label demo to learn more.