I charge $40/hr, and I'm the cheapest guy I know. Anywhere from $40-$150 hourly for competent people.
Nobody looks at apps that are below about $5k in size. So that's your starting point for something simple (tip calculator, etc.). Web services, datacenters, anything algorithmic is way, way more (~50k?)
Never hire people on eLance.
Market: grows 10-20% every six months or so. You won't get rich, especially if you expect Apple to do all your marketing. You can make a living if you're competent. Blockbusters are pure luck, but if you get one you can make 50k a month. 5-10k a year is much more common for niche apps with no marketing (what everyone seems to write).
Free+in-app purchasing may change the market quite a bit ("oh, you want wheels with that car?"), but nobody really knows yet.
App review is a bitch, so get a developer who's been around the block to advise you on getting through review.
Interesting reply. I have a couple of questions for you.
1. How do you get your clients?
2. Could you elaborate on "5-10k a year is much more common for niche apps with no marketing (what everyone seems to write)." I'm curious about your apps and results.
1. People find me. A combination of Google juice (I occasionally blog about iPhone development), and people (ab)using the "support contact" for my apps in the store. I've never (except when I had just started) actually had to approach anyone. Random point sample: I've gotten two e-mails so far from people who have read my comments on this post. It's a developer's market.
2. I don't talk about clients' numbers for obvious reasons. I'm not really sure how to elaborate. Can you elaborate on your question?
The figure I gave above is for a generic niche app that does a useful computation for those in a particular profession with no marketing budget. There are a lot of people who say to themselves "I'm a doctor, and I want an app that does X" where X is something doctors do. That is, the primary audience is the client. In cases like this, the marketing budget is 0 and the client's focus is to make a little extra income, but his day job is being a doctor, and making his own life easier. If he makes his investment back in a year, he's happy, and has 3-4 years or however long the lifecycle is of pure profit.
Other times you have people who use iPhone apps as a loss-leader (online ordering, etc.) for their real business. I have no way of tracking the "success" of this, but anecdotally the proposals are like 25% of the market.
The "startup" case--where somebody quits his job to develop the killer iPhone app--is actually not that prevalent (except on HN). 90% of these people are those flakey guys who "have a killer idea" that reduces to "Facebook for X" or "Let's make a CSI-enchance button for the iPhone camera." There are other problems too, that basically reduce to not having thought things through or not knowing what they're doing. The remaining 10% are legit, but it's work to separate them from the flakey people, and meanwhile I've got unsurmountable piles of Type A and Type B people's proposals in my inbox.
Cool projects pay less than boring ones, and at this particular stage in life I want to work on cool things.
I'm also very selective about clients and I prefer working with very reliable people. I might raise rates on somebody new, but I haven't taken on any new clients in... at least 6 months; there's plenty of work to do for the existing ones.
Have you ever hired people on elance? The company I work for has, and they do create what you want. If you specify exactly what you want, you can get 10 tip calculators for a couple grand.
Nobody looks at apps that are below about $5k in size. So that's your starting point for something simple (tip calculator, etc.). Web services, datacenters, anything algorithmic is way, way more (~50k?)
Never hire people on eLance.
Market: grows 10-20% every six months or so. You won't get rich, especially if you expect Apple to do all your marketing. You can make a living if you're competent. Blockbusters are pure luck, but if you get one you can make 50k a month. 5-10k a year is much more common for niche apps with no marketing (what everyone seems to write).
Free+in-app purchasing may change the market quite a bit ("oh, you want wheels with that car?"), but nobody really knows yet.
App review is a bitch, so get a developer who's been around the block to advise you on getting through review.