alt Hacker NewsShow HN: An iOS budget app I've been maintaining since 2011
I’ve been building and selling software since the early 2000s, starting with classic shareware. In 2011, I moved into the App Store world and built an iOS budget app because I needed a simple way to track my own expenses.
At the time, my plan was to replace a few larger shareware projects with several smaller apps to spread the risk. That didn’t quite work out — one app, MoneyControl, quickly grew so much that it became my main focus.
Fifteen years later, the app is still on the App Store, still actively developed, and still used by people who started with version 1.0. Many apps from that era are long gone.
Looking back, these are some of the things that mattered most:
Starting early helped, but wasn’t enough on its own. Early visibility made a difference, but long-term maintenance and reliability are what kept users.
Focus beat diversification. I wanted many small apps. I ended up with one large, long-lived product. Deep focus turned out to be more sustainable.
Long-term maintenance is most of the work. Adapting to new iOS versions, migrating data safely, handling edge cases, and keeping old data usable mattered more than flashy features.
Discoverability keeps getting harder. Reaching users on the App Store today is much more difficult than it was years ago. Prices are higher than in the old 99-cent days, but visibility hasn’t improved.
I’m a developer first, not a marketer. I work alone, with occasional help from freelancers. No employees, no growth team. The app could probably have grown more with better marketing, but that was never my strength.
You don’t need to get rich to build something sustainable. I didn’t build this for an exit. I’ve been able to make a living from my work for over 20 years, which feels like success to me.
Building things you actually use keeps you honest. Every product I built was something I personally needed. That authenticity mattered more than any roadmap.
This week I released version 10 with a new design and a major technical overhaul. It feels less like a milestone and more like preparing the app for the next phase.
Happy to answer questions about long-term app maintenance, indie development, or keeping a product alive across many iOS generations.
Comments
Nice project! I built a CLI budgeting project a long time ago, and what made me stop using my own project was the lack of automated integration with my bank accounts. At that point I had many credit cards, multiple bank accounts, in different currencies, and integrating all expenses was just too much manual work.
I wish financial institutions were better at automated exports of your financial data, given the right permissions of course.
I love this. I also built a business like that[0]. It's super niche. I have maintained this small business for soon to be 13 years now. Most of what has worked has been maintaining great relationships with the few customers I have. I think the most important thing for me have been offering amazing support. I always reply to all e-mails right away and make it my top priority giving them my best help.
Congratulations on your success, and best of luck going forward!
[0] https://www.mino.no.
My personal bias is that anytime I see on a software company's website footer that they're a GmbH, I know it will be selling high quality, durable, reliable software ;)
Congrats on your continued success!
The questions that come to mind for me:
1. How long after releasing the iOS app did you start on an Android version?
2. Are you using some kind of cross-platform framework, or are the apps mostly “mobile-friendly web views”?
3. How much code is shared between the three architectures?
4. How much of the app functionality is “server based” instead of “on device”?
> Unfortunately, our security system has detected malicious access from your computer to our website. For the protection of our system the access was temporarily blocked.
???
Congrats! It's not easy to build something people want and will pay for. It's even less easy to do it for 10+ years.
That's all I wanted to say - as much of a milestone as version 10 is - the past 9 were amazing as well.
Small typo on https://primoco.me/en/price: "conenction to a paid WebApp"
Some basic questions from a cybersecurity vulnerability researcher:
- what kind of authentication protocol stack is used
- what algorithm is used for network protocol encryption (hash, block, encryption)
- is data centrally stored, if so, is it encrypted at rest? Key stays in phones?
- any accounting audit done? (Moot but just a check mark in a small-family-business-oriented checkbox)
Great pricing!!
This really resonates. Long-term maintenance, reliability, and staying useful over years is the hardest part of building software — and often the most overlooked. Respect for prioritizing sustainability over hype. That mindset is what actually creates real products.
As a German - I'm sure you've looked into integrating FinTS and therelike? What made you decide not to integrate any of that?
Interesting! I know next to nothing about iOS development, but surely there have been major changes in frameworks and expected look (often connected)? Which changes were there over the years and how and when did you follow them? Did it turn out good or bad to follow early / late?
How do you market your software? Did you learn how to become a marketer and took it as a persona? What have you learned how to market your software in the past 20 years as a developer?
>The mobile apps (iOS, Android, etc.) can be downloaded from the app stores and tested free of charge. Simple in-app purchases or the conenction to a paid WebApp unlock the Premium Features.
Typo in 'conenction'
Amazing to see such a long tenure in that competitive market. Thanks for sharing!
I wonder, apart from the normal exposure/distribution on App Store, what are the main strategies you've used for marketing?
Looks great, and I was also happy to see that it has offline capabilities and will sync once you have a signal. There needs to be more apps built using this model.
14+ years?
Congrats, really a long-run marathon!
Just some constructive feedback. Your site needs a little bit of work on design and copy.
"test your personal user account one month free for." and other (translation?) mistakes.
Your use of capitalisation and spelling is not consistent throughout each page.
FAQ page is empty?
Quick Manual page is empty?
iOS download link doesn't work.
Your security posture boils down to "we're German, trust us"?