How much revenue did SimplePlanes make?

$1.9M–$5.1M after Steam's roughly 30% cut, derived from the copies estimate and its price.

How many copies did SimplePlanes sell?

Q: How many copies did SimplePlanes sell?

533k to 865k copies, based on its 11k Steam reviews. This is a labeled estimate from the review count, not exact sales.

Estimated copies sold: ≈ 533k–865k; $1.9M–$5.1M after Steam's cut $3.5M–$7.9M before Steam's cut; from 11k reviews (Very Positive)

Copies are estimated from the public review count, adjusted for release year, and cross-checked against SteamSpy's own estimate.

Did the prediction match what actually happened?

We hid SimplePlanes and predicted how it would do from its 8 similar games. Every figure here, including SimplePlanes's, is estimated from Steam reviews.

Copies, estimated from reviews

typical (middle half) 61k–155k

best case 2.0M (Stormworks: Build and Rescue)

Games like SimplePlanes

A typical game among these

≈ 61k–155k copies

≈ $360k–$1.8M after Steam's cut

from ~2k reviews

Only the top fifth of 2019's Steam releases earned $34k or more before Steam's cut, so plan for that or less.

7 of the 8 similar games are hits.

No genre covers most of these similar games. The closest is Flight (4 of 8), so its genre is hard to place.

Of the 416 indie games that passed 1,000 reviews in 2022, 11.8% were novel genre mixes and 88.2% stuck to an established genre. Published indie market research.

Best case: Stormworks: Build and Rescue at ≈ 1.5M–2.4M copies, ≈ $10.3M–$27.6M after Steam's cut.

What their first month looked like

About half the games that made it here had over 2k reviews in their first month; the range was 32 to 11k.

The genre you'd be entering

These games: The similar games share Flight (4 of 8) and Base-Building (3 of 8).
The winners: Winners here lead with Sandbox + Base-Building, priced around $25.
When they shipped: The similar games span 2019 to 2026, and 2 of the 8 shipped in the last two years.

How these numbers were worked out

A hit here: 1,000+ reviews, roughly $150k+ before Steam's cut (a standard indie benchmark).

Copies come from each game's reviews times a sales-per-review rate that falls with release age, from about 31 for the most recent game here to about 36 for the oldest, then widened into a range; revenue rides on that estimate times price. Source: GameDiscoverCo (2020) and VG Insights (2021).

Similar games

Game	Est. copies	Est. revenue	Price	Reviews	Tags
Stormworks: Build and Rescue 2020	Est. copies ≈ 1.5M–2.4M 25x vs typical SteamSpy 1M–2M	Est. revenue $10.3M–$27.6M after Steam's cut $18.7M–$42.5M before Steam's cut	$24.99	60k reviews Very Positive	SandboxBase-Building
Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor 2020	Est. copies ≈ 54k–88k SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $296k–$796k after Steam's cut $538k–$1.2M before Steam's cut	$19.99	2k reviews Mostly Positive	StrategySingleplayer
KitHack Model Club 2024	Est. copies ≈ 17k–28k SteamSpy 50k–100k	Est. revenue $94k–$252k after Steam's cut $171k–$388k before Steam's cut	$19.99	688 reviews Mostly Positive	ModdableOpen World
Airport CEO 2021	Est. copies ≈ 207k–337k 3.4x vs typical SteamSpy 500k–1M	Est. revenue $1.4M–$3.8M after Steam's cut $2.6M–$5.9M before Steam's cut	$24.99	8k reviews Very Positive	FlightResource Management
Astro Colony 2026	Est. copies ≈ 68k–110k SteamSpy 50k–100k	Est. revenue $372k–$1.0M after Steam's cut $676k–$1.5M before Steam's cut	$19.99	3k reviews Very Positive	Base-BuildingAutomation
Bird 2021	Est. copies ≈ 25k–41k SteamSpy 20k–50k	Est. revenue $7k–$18k after Steam's cut $12k–$28k before Steam's cut	$0.99	1k reviews Very Positive	NatureFlight
Juno: New Origins 2023	Est. copies ≈ 88k–143k SteamSpy 200k–500k	Est. revenue $485k–$1.3M after Steam's cut $882k–$2.0M before Steam's cut	$19.99	4k reviews Very Positive	BuildingScience
Planet Nomads 2019	Est. copies ≈ 59k–95k SteamSpy 100k–200k	Est. revenue Free	Free	2k reviews Mixed	Sci-fiProcedural Generation