# A photography blogger who sold color presets turned them into a $9.99 iPhone camera

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/apps/ios_6760676546.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
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> Founder Dave Herring (45k YouTube subscribers) had his preset users and beta community pile on five-star reviews on launch day. 11-02 He then posted a video shot with it in Colorado, and it charted in the Top Paid category across dozens of low-barrier countries. Chromagraph's paid film camera boom at the same time may have helped too.

[Mobile App](https://stringers.io/en/apps/index.md) · iOS · written 11-6

Very Good Camera · Gray Ribbon, Inc.

# A photography blogger who sold color presets turned them into a $9.99 iPhone camera

**What it is** An iPhone camera app that brings Very Good Co.'s three film color presets from Lightroom straight into the phone, shooting out-of-camera. $9.99 one-time purchase, no subscription.

**Why it took off** Creator Dave Herring (45k YouTube subscribers) had long-time preset customers and beta community members write glowing reviews on launch day. 11-02 He then posted a video shot with it in Colorado, and it pushed the app into Top Paid charts in dozens of countries with low entry barriers. Chromagraph's concurrent push for paid film cameras may have helped too.

**C** **How you could follow** Preset and LUT creators with color assets and a paying audience could copy the playbook: closed beta, community reviews on launch day, then a work video to drive traffic. Developers without an audience have a better bet: build white-label camera apps for these creators and earn revenue share.

Grade C: the launch depended on the founder's existing paying audience, which followers can't replicate. The feature set leaves no gap, and the creator-built film camera niche has been crowded for 2026 years, with small absolute volume. The takeaways are the launch rhythm and the low-barrier Top Paid charts, plus the side door of outsourcing for preset creators. Still under the radar

Data (updated daily) · Launched 2026-10-21 · US ratings 21 · 11-08 best overall Top Paid rank #8 (SN) · charted in 11-08 20 storefronts

iOS · Top Paid overall rank · By store

US store Canada Australia

Data 2026-11-04 → 2026-11-07 (4 days, 4 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that day

iOS · Number of stores charted (top 200 on any chart)

Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 8 observations)

iOS · rating count · US store

Data 2026-10-28 → 2026-11-08 (12 days, 12 observations). Apple doesn't publish download counts; rating growth is a proxy for downloads.

Two weeks after launch, Very Good Camera charted in 29 countries' Photo & Video Top Paid charts, peaking at #3 in the US. But it has only 32 ratings worldwide, and the US rating count has barely moved. It took off not because the product is new, but because the founder already had a group of people who had paid for his color. If you want to follow, first ask whether you have a group like that.

### A Colorado video

In 2026 Nov 2, Bay Area photography creator Dave Herring posted a YouTube video titled "I Only Brought This Camera to Colorado". The "camera" was an iPhone running an app from his own company that had launched in 21 Oct: Very Good Camera.

The first line of the video description is the store link, with a `ct=Youtube` attribution parameter so he could see how many downloads the video drove. The pinned comment reads: "No subscription! No in-app purchases!" As of 11-06, the video has 12.6k views and 73 comments. Half the comments ask about the app: whether it works on iPhone 16, whether it can open from the side camera control button, whether there's an Android version. The other half say "Just purchased" and "Purchased." One person says "I may have to sell my Ricoh GR IV"; another writes: "I've used Leica's app and loved it, but I hated the $80 yearly subscription. One-time purchase, that's great."

The day after the video, the app's charted countries rose from 8 to 12. A day later, it reached 25, and overall Top Paid charts went from 0 countries to 12 (App Store country charts, 11-02 to 11-04).

### What it is

An iPhone camera app, $9.99 one-time purchase (CA$12.99 in Canada), no subscription, no in-app purchases, iPhone only, requires iOS 18.6 or later.

The core is three color looks: VG400 for everyday use, VG800 for low light, and VGTX, a black-and-white look modeled on Kodak Tri-X film. Each can be fine-tuned. The rest is what a proper camera should have: manual ISO and shutter, exposure lock, focus tracking, RAW/HEIC/JPG, 48MP, XPAN wide format, frames, three shutter sounds, and a Natural Processing mode that mimics a digital compact.

These three looks weren't made for the app. Very Good Co. was already a brand selling Lightroom and Capture One presets (Portra 400/800, Tri-X, Kodachrome 64 released last month), and a video LUT called VG 400 already existed. Dave Herring has shot film for 30 years and started on YouTube in 2023. He has 45k subscribers and 6.3M cumulative views (YouTube, 11-06), and the preset business came later. The developer listed on the store is Gray Ribbon, Inc., which has only this one app, with the developer site pointing to shopverygood.com/app.

### How big it actually got

Look at the charts first, then the ratings. The two don't match.

| Date | Countries charting in category rankings | Best category rank | Countries charting in overall Top Paid | Global rating count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10-28 | 15 | 9 | 2 | 22 |
| 11-02 | 8 | 13 | 0 | 25 |
| 11-04 | 25 | 2 | 12 | 29 |
| 11-05 | 29 | 2 | 14 | 31 |
| 11-06 | 29 | 2 | 11 | 32 |

App Store country charts and ratings, 10-28 to 11-06.

US Photo & Video Top Paid: 10-28 #56,11-03 #22,11-04 #4,11-05 #3,11-06 #5. Yet over the same period, the US rating count stayed at 19 to 20.

This suggests the paid category charts have a low bar: a few dozen to a hundred-plus sales a day may be enough for a top-five US spot, and it's easier in smaller countries (inference; Apple doesn't publish download counts). 29 countries charting at once looks like spreading, but it's really one video pushing into a set of low-barrier paid charts. 11-06 It has since slipped to #103 in the US overall Top Paid chart. Units sold aren't visible from outside; a rough estimate from rating count and chart position puts revenue between a few thousand and $10–20K (estimate).

### Where users come from

**The first wave was long-time users, arriving on launch day.** Of the 18 reviews visible, 13 were written on the 21 launch day in Oct, then they nearly stopped until 11-04. Contents include "long-time Very Good preset user," "Dave's presets are the best, and now he's brought them to iPhone," "thanks for letting me into the beta," and "congrats to Dave & the crew." Video comments also include someone who said "used it in Europe during beta and got hooked right away." His website and every video link to Discord, Patreon, and an email list. The likely reading: he first built a closed beta community, and on launch day that group came in together to leave five-star ratings, filling the store page's first screen (inference).

**The second wave was the YouTube video.** Notably, he posted no video promoting the app during launch week; his 10-26 video was about aperture and didn't mention the app at all. By 11-02, the store page had over twenty five-star ratings, and only then did he post the "only brought iPhone to Colorado" work video, footage shot with the app.

**The third wave may be a chart boosted by someone else.** In Oct 20, director Rian Johnson and cinematographer Steve Yedlin released Chromagraph Camera ($12.99). Gizmodo covered it on 10-28, and between 10-30 and 11-02 it reached #1 on the US overall Top Paid chart. Around the same time, several new film and retro cameras squeezed into the US Photo & Video Top Paid top 40. People searching for a "cinematic iPhone camera" may have found this app through the chart. The timing lines up, but there's no direct evidence (inference).

What I couldn't find: no ads found on Meta, nobody discussing it specifically on TikTok, X, or Reddit, and no press coverage.

### Why users pay

The praise in reviews focuses less on any one feature than on three things:

- **The colors are the ones people already know.** "Matches my film and digital cameras" and "Tri-X looks punchy, VG800 saturation is just right." Users spent years using the VG presets in Lightroom, and now the phone shoots the same look straight out of camera.

- **Simplicity.** "Pick the preset, focal length, exposure mode, and that's it; it remembers your settings." "Thanks for keeping the options so few. I bought it because other apps keep getting more complicated and messier."

- **One-time purchase.** The alternatives are Leica LUX (advanced features require a subscription; a user says $80 a year) and feature-rich, complex pro cameras like Halide.

Note that manual controls, RAW, film simulations, and frames are all available in Halide, Moment, Leica LUX, and Better Camera, which PetaPixel covered in June this year. What's really different is only "where the color comes from," and that only matters to people who already trust that color.

### Who it's competing with

| Competitors | Scale (US, 11-06) | How it differs |
|---|---|---|
| Chromagraph Camera | Overall Top Paid #3,179 rating count, 7 new ratings in 178 days | Endorsed by a famous director and cinematographer, covered by press, $12.99, an order of magnitude more buzz |
| Leica LUX | 8,045 ratings | Leica brand, advanced features on subscription |
| Halide Mark III | 13.7k ratings | Veteran RAW pro camera, full-featured, weak on stylization |
| Moment Pro Camera II | Paid category #4,516 rating count | Leans toward pro manual control, doesn't focus on color |
| Better Camera, MARS | Not seen on the charts | Also a film camera made by a photographer, but without a ready-made audience |
| Dazz Cam, Huji, VSCO, ROLLIE'S | Dazz 117k, VSCO 278k ratings | Mass-market heavy filters and retro looks; this targets film fans who use Lightroom |
| The iPhone's built-in photo styles | All iPhones | Free, but without the film color |

The path of "photographer makes their own film camera" has been crowded for 2026 years already. Nobody has copied Very Good Camera yet, mostly because almost nobody knows about it.

### If it were you

**Verdict** : this isn't an app that succeeded on product. It's a creator selling already-sold color a second time. Someone without their own audience who copies it will most likely end up like Better Camera: decent work, but nowhere on the charts.

**Who it fits** : people who have "color assets" and a paying audience. For example, photo or video creators selling Lightroom presets, LUTs, or color grading courses, or iOS developers who can take outsourced work from these creators. The latter is worth thinking about more: there are many preset brands like Very Good, and most can't build an app themselves. A "camera shell + swappable color looks + brand skin" package could be sold to them one by one, for revenue share or a one-time development fee.

**Who it doesn't fit** : indie developers without an audience who hope to win through organic store traffic or features. There's no feature gap here: Chromagraph has celebrity and press backing, and Halide and Leica have long-time users.

**How to do it** : one-time purchase at $8–13; three to five color looks, deliberately few; remember the user's settings so it opens ready to shoot; RAW plus a style applied straight out of camera. There's no Android version, and commenters keep asking, so that's a gap it hasn't filled. But the Android paid camera market is much smaller, so don't count on it.

**How to acquire users** : Follow its rhythm. First run a closed beta through Discord or Patreon → on launch day have that group write reviews to fill the store page → about a week later post a video titled something like "shooting X with only this phone," with the description's first line holding the store link with the `ct=` parameter, and a pinned comment saying "no subscription." The paid category charts are low-bar, so one video with 10,000+ views can buy charting exposure in dozens of countries.

**When is "before"** : The momentum from Chromagraph reviving this category is still around, and year-end is photo and gift season. To ride that wave, list before mid-December. Missing it isn't fatal, though, since this runs on its audience, not on timing.

**Signs we're reading it wrong** : ① By December, Very Good Camera's US rating count is above 100, or it stays in the top 10 of its category without Dave posting videos. That would mean the product is pulling in strangers, not just existing fans. ② A press outlet or Apple editors feature it. ③ The reverse: if cameras like Chromagraph fall out of the overall top-200 paid chart within two months, "paid film cameras" was a passing trend, and building cameras for preset creators as a service can't hold up on its own.

[iOS store page ↗](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6760676546)

**Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report**

Competitors

| Name | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from this one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chromagraph Camera | iOS | 2026-10-20 | US overall Top Paid #1 (10-30–11-02), current rating #3,179; +7 in 178,30 days; country category #1. Covered by Gizmodo. | Backed by director Rian Johnson and cinematographer Yedlin, a cinema-grade color pipeline, and $12.99. Its reach is an order of magnitude bigger. VGC sells preset colors users already know, at a lower price. |
| Leica LUX | iOS | 2024-06 | US store rating 8045 | A Leica brand, with advanced features on a subscription (one user says $80 a year). VGC is a one-time purchase. |
| Halide Mark III | iOS | 2017 | US store 13.7k rating | A pro RAW camera with complex controls and weak styling. VGC is deliberately minimal, with straight-out-of-camera looks. |
| Moment Pro Camera II | iOS | 2025-11 | US paid category #4,516 rating | Aimed at manual control more than color. |
| Better Camera(David Gor) | iOS | Mid-2026 | Covered by PetaPixel. No chart entry found in the library. | Also built by a photographer, with 9 film emulations, but no ready-made audience or preset brand behind it. |
| Dazz Cam / Huji / VSCO / ROLLIE'S, etc. | iOS | 2009–2026 | Dazz 117k, VSCO 278k ratings | Heavy filters and retro looks for the mass market. VGC targets Lightroom film fans who want restrained film feel. |
| iPhone Photographic Styles | Big-company features | iOS 18 | All iPhones | Free and system-level, but no film stock colors and no RAW with styling. |

Where users come from

- **Verified** **Founder's YouTube video** : Dave Herring (45.1k subscribers) posted "I Only Brought This Camera to Colorado" on 11-02. The description's first line is an ct=Youtube attribution link, and the pinned comment stresses a one-time purchase. 11-06 it has 12.6k views, and comments mostly ask about the app. Charted countries went 11-03→11-04, 12→25.

- **Verified** **Existing preset users, Discord/Patreon/beta community** : Of 18 reviews, 13 were posted on launch day 10-21. Several say "beta," "long time user of very good presets," or "congrats to Dave."

- Inferred **Instagram** : @daveherring has about 25k followers and @verygoodpresets about 2.4k (TikHub). I didn't verify the app posts he shared one by one.

- Inferred **Spillover from Chromagraph's paid-chart run** : Starting 10-30, Chromagraph was US overall Top Paid #1, and in the same period a batch of new film cameras entered the Photo & Video paid top 40. The timing lines up, but there's no direct evidence.

- Inferred **Paid ads** : No hits in the metaads library (it only tracks a fixed list, so no hits doesn't mean no ads).

## Very Good Camera (id6760676546): why it worked

> In one line: a Lightroom preset brand (Very Good Co., founded by YouTube photographer Dave Herring, 45k subscribers) turned its best-selling film presets into a $9.99 one-time-purchase iPhone camera. Two things drove the launch: the founder's own audience (existing users and beta testers wrote positive reviews on launch day) and a YouTube video with an attribution link posted in Nov 2. It also landed right when Chromagraph Camera (made by Rian Johnson) was reviving the paid film camera category, which pushed up the Photo & Video paid chart (this part is inferred). The absolute numbers are small: 32 ratings globally, and the real rating data shows no organic growth.

### 1. What the product is

- Developer Gray Ribbon, Inc., with this as its only app (appstore library, app table, 2026-11-06). Listed 2026-10-21, iPhone only, requires iOS 18.6+. US $9.99, Canada CA$12.99 (app_day, 2026-11-06). One-time purchase, with no subscription and no in-app purchases (the App Store page, reviews, and the YouTube pinned comment all say so).

- Features: three color modes, VG400 (everyday), VG800 (low light), and VGTX (black and white, aimed at Tri-X). Each can be fine-tuned. Also manual ISO/shutter, exposure lock, push/pull modeled on film scans, tap and tracking focus, focal length combos, JPG/HEIC/RAW, 12/48MP, Natural Processing (a digicam card look), XPAN and other aspect ratios, frames, and three shutter sounds ([App Store page](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/very-good-camera/id6760676546), 2026-11-06 crawl).

- Where the colors come from: these are paid presets Very Good Co. sells to Lightroom and Capture One users (Portra 400/800, Tri-X, etc.), and there's a matching video LUT, "VG 400" ([shopverygood.com](https://shopverygood.com/luts/vg-400)). Founder Dave Herring lives in the Bay Area and has shot film for 30 years. He started a YouTube channel in 2023, then launched Very Good Presets ([About page](https://shopverygood.com/about)).

### 2. Data: the shape of the launch

Data from the appstore library's app_day and app_profile tables, 2026-10-28 to 11-06.

| Date | Countries where it charted in a category | Best category rank | Countries where it charted in the overall paid chart | Best overall paid rank | Global rating count |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10-28 | 15 | 9 | 2 | 189 | 22 |
| 10-31 | 10 | 6 | 1 | 156 | 22 |
| 11-02 | 8 | 13 | 0 | – | 25 |
| 11-03 | 12 | 3 | 2 | 67 | 27 |
| 11-04 | 25 | 2 | 12 | 60 | 29 |
| 11-05 | 29 | 2 | 14 | 28 | 31 |
| 11-06 | 29 | 2 | 11 | 39 | 32 |

- US Photo & Video paid chart: 10-28 #56 → 11-03 #22 → 11-04 #4 → 11-05 #3 → 11-06 #5; overall paid chart 11-04 #70, 11-05 #60, 11-06 #103. During this period, US rating count stayed between 19 and 20 and barely moved.

- Canada category #3–5, Germany #3–7, UK #3–10, Croatia #2 (overall paid #39) (11-04 to 11-06).

- Review pace: of the 18 reviews I could pull from the library, 13 were posted on launch day 10-21. 10-22 and 10-23 had 2 and 1 respectively, and after that 11-04 brought only 1 (review table). Several say "used the beta for a while," "long time Very Good preset user," or "congrats to Dave & the crew." **Inferred** : this first-day batch was written by the founder's community (Discord, Patreon, beta testers), not left by strangers who found the app organically.

- How to read it: the paid category bar is low. US ratings barely moved, yet it still reached the top 5, which suggests dozens to hundreds of one-time purchases a day may be enough (inferred, since Apple doesn't publish download counts). It charted in 29 countries at once, which looks like it's spreading. In practice, one promotion hit several low-bar small-country paid charts at once, which doesn't mean a large number of users.

### 3. Where users came from (growth tactics)

1. **Founder's YouTube (verified, main channel)** : Dave Herring's channel has 45.1k subscribers, 6.3M total views, and 249 videos (YouTube Data API, 2026-11-06). On 11-02 he posted "I Only Brought This Camera to Colorado" (the older title in search results was "A Very Unexpected Camera"), a full video about shooting Colorado with an iPhone and this app. The first line of the description is the store link with the attribution parameter `apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6760676546?pt=128667204&ct=Youtube`, and the pinned comment stresses "No subscription! No in-app purchases!" As of 11-06 it had 12.6k views and 73 comments, mostly asking about the app (phone models, the Camera Control button, Android). Some said "Just purchased," "better than the Leica LUX," and "Leica is $80 a year on a subscription, this is one-time." **The timing lines up exactly** : from 11-03 to 11-04 after the video went up, charted countries rose from 8 to 25, and the overall paid chart from 0 to 12 countries.

2. **Existing users and community migration (verified)** : Launch-day reviews repeatedly mention "long time user of very good presets," "Dave makes the best presets and he brought them to the iPhone," and "Thank you for the Beta test." The website and every video description link to Discord, Patreon, and the mailing list. People who already bought the presets want the same colors on their phone, so buying this app is an easy step.

3. **Instagram (partly verified)** : @daveherring has about 25k followers and @verygoodpresets about 2.4k (TikHub Instagram API, 2026-11-06; the field used was count, so there may be some error). I didn't check the app posts he shared one by one.

4. **Riding the Chromagraph wave on the Top Paid chart (inferred)** : Rian Johnson and cinematographer Steve Yedlin's Chromagraph Camera ($12.99) 10-20 launched, 10-28 Gizmodo covered it, 10-30 through 11-02 it was 1,7 on the US overall Top Paid chart, with 178 new ratings that day ([Gizmodo 2026-10-28](https://gizmodo.com/the-last-jedi-director-launches-a-new-camera-app-for-iphone-because-hes-a-good-guy-2000832061); appstore database). In the same window, the US Photo & Video Top Paid top 40 was crowded with new film and retro camera apps launched this year: 2AM CAM, ROLLIE'S, Flipcorder, Snapshots and more. People searching for a "cinematic iPhone camera" may have found it through the chart, but there is no direct evidence for that.

5. **Not found** : No ads for this app or Very Good in the Meta ad library (metaads only tracks a fixed list, so no hits doesn't mean no ads). A TikTok search for "very good camera app" only returned other apps. X had no related discussion for "very good camera" in the last 7 days (X API recent search, 2026-11-06). PetaPixel and Reddit have no dedicated coverage or threads I could find.

### 4. Competitors

| Competitors | Platform | Launched | Scale (appstore library, US, 2026-11-06) | How it differs from Very Good Camera |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chromagraph Camera(Chromatic Applications) | iOS | 2026-10-20 | US overall paid #3, category rating #1,179, +7 in 178 days; category #1 in 30 countries | Backed by a celebrity director and a film cinematographer, built on a cinema-grade color pipeline from RAW, at $12.99. It has press coverage and an order of magnitude more reach. VGC sells "the preset pack I already bought," which gives it stronger consistency at a lower price of $3. |
| Moment Pro Camera II | iOS | 2025-11 | Category paid #4,516 rating | Aimed at manual control more than color styling. |
| Halide Mark III(Lux Optics) | iOS | 2017 | 13.7k ratings, mixed subscription and one-time purchase. | An established pro RAW camera with weak styling. |
| Leica LUX | iOS | 2024-06 | 8045 ratings, bestselling category 103. | Leica's Leica Looks, with premium features behind a subscription (one YouTube commenter says "$80 a year"). VGC's one-time purchase is a point people keep raising. |
| Better Camera(David Gor) | iOS | Mid-2026 | No chart entry for an app of the same name found in the library. Not verified. | Also "built by a photographer, with 9 film emulations plus manual controls" ([PetaPixel 2026-06-01](https://petapixel.com/2026/06/01/photographer-builds-the-iphone-camera-app-he-always-wanted/)), but with no ready-made audience behind it. |
| ROLLIE'S, 2AM CAM, BerryFilm, Dazz Cam, Huji, Hipstamatic, VSCO | iOS (some also on Android) | 2009–2026 | Dazz 117k, VSCO 278k ratings | Retro filters and social for the mass market, with heavy styling. VGC targets middle-aged film fans who use Lightroom and want film feel that isn't overdone. |
| iPhone's built-in Photographic Styles | Big-company features | iOS 18 and up | All iPhones | free and system-level, but no film stock color, and no RAW + style workflow |

There's no Android version (people in the YouTube comments are asking for Android).

### 5. Why it took off

- **A ready-made paying audience** : tens of thousands of people who already paid for the Very Good presets and recognize the look (45k YouTube subscribers, about 25k on Instagram, plus Discord and Patreon). The app just moves the same look onto the phone, so the cold-start cost is close to zero.

- **A founder video with a tracked link pushed it up the charts** : after the 11-02 video, its chart position went from 8 to 29 in charting countries and from 0 to 14 on the overall Top Paid chart. The timing lines up.

- **The category is hot** : Chromagraph pushed "paid film-look iPhone camera" to #1 on the US overall Top Paid chart, the paid category chart is heating up as a whole, and the barrier to entry is low (inference).

- **One-time purchase plus simplicity** : reviews most often praise "no subscription / no IAP," "simple," "set it & forget it," and "matches my film and digital cameras." That hits the pain points of Leica LUX's subscription and Halide's complexity.

### 6. Differentiation

The differentiation isn't in features. Manual controls, RAW, film simulation, and frames are all offered by Halide, Moment, Better Camera, and Leica LUX. What's actually different is **where the color comes from** : these are VG presets users already bought in Lightroom and have used for years, so the phone output matches the photos they shoot and edit on their cameras (several reviews say "consistency with my film and digital cameras"). On top of that is a **one-time purchase and deliberately small product** stance. The differentiation is genuinely why people buy, but it only works if that audience exists first, so this is essentially "monetizing an existing asset"; the product alone doesn't pull in strangers. Right now its place on the chart is mostly the afterglow of the founder's promotion.

### 7. Visibility and copycats

- Visibility: **few people know about it yet** . No media coverage, no discussion on X or Reddit, no public revenue; it's only spreading within Dave Herring's own audience. The focal point in the same category is Chromagraph (covered by Gizmodo, with the director posting on X).

- Copycats: I haven't seen anyone copying it. But the "creators or photographers building their own film-camera apps" lane has been crowded for 2026 years already: Chromagraph, Better Camera, MARS ([PetaPixel 2026-10-18](https://petapixel.com/2026/10/18/new-iphone-camera-app-mars-lives-for-grainy-black-and-white-photos/)), ROLLIE'S, and others.

### 8. What to borrow

- Photography or color-grading creators who sell presets, LUTs, or courses already have ready-made "color assets" and a paying audience. Turning that into a one-time-purchase camera app is a low-cost second revenue stream: one developer, three color treatments, $9.99.

- Launch rhythm: closed beta first (using the community as testers) → on launch day, the community leaves reviews en masse to fill the first screen with 5 stars → a week or so later, post a video shot with the app, put a store link with a ct= tracking parameter in the description, and pin a comment emphasizing "one-time purchase."

- The paid category chart has a low bar. A single video with 10k+ views can push it into the category chart of 29 countries, so it's very cost-effective for chart exposure.

- "No subscription" is the selling point in itself, especially against subscription competitors like Leica LUX.

### 9. Still unclear

- How many copies it actually sold: the rating count is only 32, and the share of paying users who leave reviews is unknown. I haven't seen it on the Top Grossing chart. My estimate is revenue in the range of a few thousand to ten-some thousand dollars (pure inference).

- Who Gray Ribbon, Inc. is (Dave's own company or an outsourced developer) — I couldn't find out.

- Whether Apple editorial featured it, and how much traffic came from Instagram posts, is unverified.

- Staying power: 11-06's US overall Top Paid rank has already dropped to 103, new ratings are close to 0, and it's unclear how long the second wave of videos can keep it going.

- Of the 11-04 jump, how much came from chart spillover driven by Chromagraph and how much from YouTube can't be separated.

### Sources

- App Store page: [apps.apple.com/us/app/very-good-camera/id6760676546](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/very-good-camera/id6760676546) (2026-11-06)

- App Store data: app_day, app_profile, review, v_chart (2026-10-28~11-06)

- Very Good Co.: [shopverygood.com/](https://shopverygood.com/), [shopverygood.com/about](https://shopverygood.com/about), [shopverygood.com/luts/vg-400](https://shopverygood.com/luts/vg-400)

- YouTube: channel UCgcZiaGyp4fh4TemtTwwEdw; video [www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl9qG8JixGk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl9qG8JixGk) (2026-11-02, stats as of 11-06)

- Gizmodo,Chromagraph:[gizmodo.com/the-last-jedi-director-launches-a-new-camera-app…](https://gizmodo.com/the-last-jedi-director-launches-a-new-camera-app-for-iphone-because-hes-a-good-guy-2000832061)

- PetaPixel,Better Camera:[petapixel.com/2026/06/01/photographer-builds-the-iphone-came…](https://petapixel.com/2026/06/01/photographer-builds-the-iphone-camera-app-he-always-wanted/);MARS:[petapixel.com/2026/10/18/new-iphone-camera-app-mars-lives-fo…](https://petapixel.com/2026/10/18/new-iphone-camera-app-mars-lives-for-grainy-black-and-white-photos/)

- metaads library (no hits), TikHub TikTok search and Instagram profile, X API recent search (2026-11-06)

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.