How much can you earn as an indie dev? Tiny Terraces creator shares the numbers

You never really know which indie game will blow up on Steam next. It’s been at least one unexpected hit every month. Titles like R.E.P.O., Peak, or the recent RV There Yet? have hit over 100k concurrent players in no time. Another surprise trend has been the new wave of idle games that kicked off earlier this year. I’ve never been into mindless clickers, but there’s something about these new ones that feels more thoughtful. Many are made by solo developers, including VuVuu, the creator of Tiny Terraces, an idle farming title that’s had a tiny success of its own, and now the developer is pulling back the curtain and sharing how much the game has actually earned.

How an idle game made $26,000 in its first month

Tiny Terraces is a farming idle game inspired by the golems from the Thaumcraft mod for Minecraft. It launched at the end of July on Steam and mobile, and in his latest video, the developer went over some behind-the-scenes stats, including how much the game earned in its first month and the marketing strategy used to get the word out.

Source: Tiny Terraces; Developer: VuVuu

The main strategy was pumping out loads of YouTube shorts (132 videos between August 2024 and 2025), which really stood out, racking up 1.1 million views, while TikTok and Twitter each generated over 300,000 views. A demo trailer also blew up unexpectedly with 124,000 views, giving the game a huge boost.

Before launch, the game had about 28,000 wishlists. The single biggest spike was 1,500 wishlists in one day after the demo was featured at February NextFest, a Steam event that’s perfect for indie devs to get more eyes on their games.

When Tiny Terraces launched in Early Access on Steam on July 31st, it sold over 5,000 copies, and the mobile release on August 11th added $346 in combined sales across iOS and Android.

Here are the numbers after the first month financials:

1. Total gross sales: $26,799
2. Net revenue after platform fees, taxes, and refunds: $17,363
3. Steam refund rate: 4% in the first month (currently 6.5%), much lower than the Steam average of 10.8%
4. Mobile sales contributed 16.8% of net revenue

Early Access only gets some players in, since many are still hesitant to buy unfinished games, so the full launch could easily bring even more players and bigger numbers, especially if the dev keeps up with a marketing strategy that’s clearly working.

Marketing is crucial, even while a game is still in development. It’s never too early to start spreading the word, sharing dev vlogs, or, like VuVuu did, posting YouTube Shorts to keep momentum going and make sure the game doesn’t get lost in the sea of countless releases on Steam.

• indie games
• clicker, idle game