Monetizing Your App with HAQM Underground

Warning: As of May 31, 2017, HAQM is no longer accepting new Underground app submissions. For more information, see Underground Actually Free Program FAQ – 2017 Update

Introduction

HAQM Underground is a unique way to monetize your apps. This page discusses how HAQM determines payments to developers participating in HAQM Underground, how to forecast how much money your apps might make with HAQM Underground, and how to view your earnings from your participating apps.

Determining Payment for HAQM Underground

For HAQM Underground apps, your payments are based on the number of minutes that customers use your app. The next sections go into detail about how HAQM calculates your payments earned for your HAQM Underground apps.

Please review the HAQM Underground Schedule for complete program terms.

Calculating Usage Time

As part of HAQM Underground, you are paid for the amount of time that customers have used your app. To determine the usage time, at the end of a 24-hour reporting period, HAQM calculates the total time aggregated (in milliseconds) multiplies it by the royalty rate, and rounds this number to the smallest unit of currency for your marketplace. For example, in the US, this number will be rounded to the nearest cent.

HAQM determines app usage as the amount of time that an Android Activity for your app is open and running in the foreground of a mobile device. HAQM uses four standard Android lifecycle calls to determine when an Activity gains or loses focus and is in the foreground:

onStart
onPause
onResume
onStop

Apps that close prematurely (or crash) and do not trigger the appropriate events will have reduced accuracy in usage measurements. Try to manage your app crashes and activity lifecycle events appropriately to ensure an accurate usage measurement for HAQM. See the Android developer documentation about the Android Activity Lifecycle for recommendations:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html

Calculating app usage is one reason why HAQM Underground requires that you have a unique package name for your app (in addition to avoiding collisions when users have more than one version of your app installed on a mobile device). Having a unique package name helps ensure that your app's usage time is calculated accurately.

If a user is engaged with your app but does not have an active data connection, for example, for users who have your app open while in airplane mode, the usage time is logged and sent to HAQM when the mobile device re-connects to WiFi or another data connection.

Payment Rates

HAQM Underground offers the following payment rates, based on your marketplace:

HAQM marketplace	Per minute rate
HAQM.com	$0.0020
HAQM.co.uk	£0.0013
HAQM.de	€0.0018
HAQM.es	€0.0018
HAQM.fr	€0.0018
HAQM.it	€0.0018

These rates are subject to change, based on the terms described in the HAQM Underground Schedule.

Tax Withholding

Your HAQM Underground earnings are subject to the same tax withholding rate (if applicable) as your other HAQM Appstore earnings.

Leaving HAQM Underground

If your app leaves HAQM Underground, you are paid for app usage for the temporary grace period described in the HAQM Underground Schedule. See the HAQM Underground Schedule for more information about leaving HAQM Underground.

Viewing Your HAQM Underground Payment Reports

You can review your HAQM Underground payments on the Reporting tab of your account in the HAQM Apps & Services Developer Portal. The Reporting tab allows you to view both sales and earnings for your apps. On these tabs, you will be able to create filtered reports to view your HAQM Underground sales and earnings to both monitor their progress and compare them to any non-Underground apps that you might have in the HAQM Appstore.

Although you receive a single payment for both your HAQM Underground and non-Underground earnings from your app, you will see two separate entries on your earnings reports for HAQM Underground and non-Underground apps.

Last updated: Jul 13, 2017