Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
74
Quality Score
Strong
Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
High confidence
✍️ bumetric analysis
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Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab is an iOS app from Cornell University, currently rated 4.9★ across 108,170 ratings. Initial signal reads as no scraped reviews yet: judgment based on metadata only.
Quality Score is 74: Strong (healthy traction). For an app like this, that means healthy traction. The full BU Investment Matrix below scores 8 dimensions including monetisation, growth, and operational risk.
Track changes month-over-month in the Performance section below: live snapshot history and revenue forecast included.
💰 Monthly revenue · now vs forecast
● Right now
$700K
per month
→
12-mo forecast
$741K – $1141K
per month
→
24-mo forecast
$886K – $1645K
per month
BIG tier
💡 Grow this revenue
Free AI audit of this app’s store listing
- Title & subtitle keyword fit
- Description hook & conversion structure
- Screenshots, ratings, reviews strategy
Typical impact: +2-5× organic installs
📊 Performance Tracking LIVE
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Rating
—
Reviews
—
Forecast Revenue / mo
—
Snapshots tracked
0
since first record
ONE-TIME · BUILD
💰 Estimated build cost
$90K
↳ What it cost to build · not monthly revenue
Likely range $70K – $120K
$25K · MVP floor
$100K · indie scale
$500K+ · studio build
Synthetic estimate. Inputs: category complexity, file size, screen count, monetization layer, platform reach, age × team-size proxy. Calibrated against 2024-2026 indie-agency rate surveys. Full math + source list on /methodology.
Where the money goes
| 🧱 MVP baseline (design + 1-store ship) | +$28K |
| 📱 5 unique screens × $4.5K | +$22K |
| 📦 Asset bundle (354 MB) | +$40K |
Total estimate
$90K
👥 Estimated audience size
16.0M
Lifetime downloads (US-equivalent)
Monthly active
2.4M
Daily active
480K
Synthetic estimate from ratings × category benchmarks. Calibrated against 2024-2026 mobile-attribution retention + DAU/MAU reports. Numbers are US-storefront-equivalent — true global audience can be 5-10× larger for international apps. Full math + source list on /methodology.
How we sized it
| 📲 category engagement | ~150 installs / rating |
| 🔁 category D30 retention | 15% |
| 📍 DAU / MAU stickiness | 0.20 |
DAU / MAU
20% sticky
🔬
How we forecast this revenue
MEDIUM CONFIDENCEBaseline
$700K/mo · ML-estimated from 234 triggers
Growth rate
+2.5% MoM · BIG tier baseline (compound monthly)
6 months
$690K – $933K
12 months
$741K – $1.1M
24 months
$886K – $1.6M
Compound growth at +2.5% MoM (tier baseline for BIG). Range widens with horizon — typical noise band ±15% at 6mo.. Ranges widen with horizon — distant futures carry more uncertainty.
📊
BU Investment Matrix
Concerning · 51/100BIG TIERbelow benchmarksGrowth Velocity
5.0
Founder Strength
3.0
Product Quality
9.7
Revenue Strength
5.8
Monetization Maturity
1.0
Defensibility
4.5
Market Position
2.0
Operational Safety
10.0
- 💰 Revenue: Healthy — $280K - $1540K/mo · BIG tier · medium-low confidence, trajectory unclear.
- ⭐ Quality: 4.86★ across 108,170 reviews — exceptional (top 1% in category).
- 📍 Market: Not yet charting in any of the 9 monitored markets.
- 📈 Growth: Insufficient signal to assess trajectory.
- ⚠️ Risk: Low — no material risk signals detected.
🎯 For competitors: Mixed picture. Worth competing if you have a clear UX or pricing edge — otherwise crowded segment.
💵 For acquirers: Estimated asking range 18-32× monthly = $12.6M-$22.4M.
Composite of 8 dimensions computed deterministically from public signals — no LLM, every score traces back to a measurable input. Default weights shown; "compete" / "acquire" / "invest" lenses re-weight without re-fetching.
Range:
💰 Forecast Revenue / mo
MODELRevenue forecast computed from BU's 234 trigger model on each snapshot. Calibrated against ground-truth from 58 verified-revenue apps.
🔬Forecast Breakdown — Why This Estimate?Top 5 of 5 triggers
Our ML model uses 200+ signals from public data. These are the most influential for this app:
| High install base (108,170 ratings)METRIC | +$12,000 | |
| Excellent rating (4.9★)METRIC | +$2,200 | |
| Mature app (12y old)METRIC | +$1,500 | |
| Multilingual (31 languages)METRIC | +$1,500 | |
| Ad-supported / freemiumMETRIC | +$600 |
METRIC = structural app data · REVIEW = mined from user reviews · ✓ VERIFIED = Stripe-verified anchor (TrustMRR)
📈 Reviews Growth
LIVECumulative review count from first BU snapshot. Each point = a tracked update.
⭐ Rating Trend
LIVEAverage rating evolution. Updates with each new review batch.
🆕 What's New · v3.9
What’s new in 3.9:
Observation Deck: Your Merlin home screen now features a swipeable daily feed showcasing Bird of the Day, stunning featured photos, and bite-sized bird tips! Each contains a full-screen view for photos and videos, plus a "Learn more" button to dive deeper… Full release notes →
Observation Deck: Your Merlin home screen now features a swipeable daily feed showcasing Bird of the Day, stunning featured photos, and bite-sized bird tips! Each contains a full-screen view for photos and videos, plus a "Learn more" button to dive deeper… Full release notes →
Profile & Insights
Everything we know — and don't — about this app and its company.
Identification
- App name
- Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab
- Developer
- Cornell University
- Bundle ID
- edu.cornell.birds.merlin
- App Store URL
- Open in App Store
- Category
- Not found
- Content rating
- 4+
- Languages
- AF, AR, DA, NL, EN, FR, DE, HE, ID, IT, JA, KK, KO, KY, ML, MR, MN, NB, FA, PL, PT, RU, ZH, ES, SV, TH, ZH, TR, UK, CY, ZU
Company
- Website
- Not found
- Tagline
- Identify the birds you see or hear with Merlin Bird ID
- Description
- Identify Bird Songs and Calls Sound ID listens to the birds around you and shows real-time suggestions for who’s singing. Compare your recording to the songs and calls in Merlin to confirm what you heard. Sound ID works completely offline, so you can identify birds you hear no matter where you ar
- Founded
- Not found
- HQ / Address
- Not found
- Employees
- Not found
- Logo
- Available
Revenue
- Verified revenue / mo
- Not found
- AI revenue estimate / mo
- Not found
- AI annual estimate
- Not found
- ML model estimate / mo
- Not found
- Top-grossing rank
- Outside top 100 in US
- All-time revenue
- Not found
- Pricing
- Not found
Founder
Founder data not yet collected for this app.
Funding
Funding data not yet collected for this app.
Press & Links
Press & Links data not yet collected for this app.
Contacts & Socials
Contacts & Socials data not yet collected for this app.
📈Ratings growth108,204 ratings+29% lifetimeShow 3-year history estimate ▾
Tracked (1 weeks) Pre-tracking estimate (36 weeks) · model-based, ±5% noise · anchored to release date and current value
🌍Geographic ReachNot ranked
This app is currently outside the top 100 grossing in all 9 countries we monitor (US, UK, DE, FR, JP, CA, AU, BR, IN). Niche or new apps often launch this way — popularity rankings appear once daily revenue clears the regional threshold.
Profile is built from iTunes Lookup + developer site scrape + ML revenue model. Empty fields show "Not found" — additional sources (Crunchbase, X, IndieHackers, Acquire.com) coming.
📝 About this app
What's that bird? Ask Merlin—the world’s leading app for birds. Just like magic, Merlin Bird ID will help you solve the mystery.
Merlin Bird ID helps you identify birds you see and hear. Merlin is unlike any other bird app—it's powered by eBird, the world’s largest database of bird sightings, sounds, and photos.
Merlin offers four fun ways to identify birds. Answer a few simple questions, upload a photo, record a singing bird, or explore birds in a region.… View full description on the official store →
Merlin Bird ID helps you identify birds you see and hear. Merlin is unlike any other bird app—it's powered by eBird, the world’s largest database of bird sightings, sounds, and photos.
Merlin offers four fun ways to identify birds. Answer a few simple questions, upload a photo, record a singing bird, or explore birds in a region.… View full description on the official store →
App Specs
🔐 Own this app? Claim & verify MRR →💾 354 MB🔞 4+📱 iOS 18.0+🔖 v3.9🔄 updated 0d ago🌐 AF, AR, DA, NL, EN +26💰 Free
🌍
Multi-Country Performance
Available in 9 of 9 monitored markets| Market | Rating | Reviews | Current version |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇦🇺 AU | 4.72269★ | 1,190 | 4.72269★ this version |
| 🇧🇷 BR | 4.85062★ | 569 | 4.85062★ this version |
| 🇨🇦 CA | 4.84231★ | 13,679 | 4.84231★ this version |
| 🇩🇪 DE | 4.78162★ | 1,937 | 4.78162★ this version |
| 🇫🇷 FR | 4.85545★ | 1,100 | 4.85545★ this version |
| 🇬🇧 GB | 4.82214★ | 9,468 | 4.82214★ this version |
| 🇮🇳 IN | 4.86061★ | 947 | 4.86061★ this version |
| 🇯🇵 JP | 4.14053★ | 185 | 4.14053★ this version |
| 🇺🇸 US | 4.86339★ | 108,204 | 4.86339★ this version |
🔔
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📝 Description
95
BU Score · Transcendent
Full revenue analysis
Read the article-style breakdown for Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab: category rank, percentile, growth signal, comparable apps, and how the forecast is calibrated against verified-MRR anchors in this niche.
About this analysis
Why high confidence: 108,170 ratings · no founder-verified revenue (model estimate only).
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
2 answers · auto-generated from this app's public dataWho makes Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab?▴
Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab is published by Cornell University on the Apple App Store. See the full publisher portfolio (other apps by the same developer) via the More by developer block on the product page above.
What is Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab's BU Score?▴
Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab has a BU Score of 74/100 (Strong). The score combines App Store rating, ratings count, monetization model and revenue signals calibrated against founder-verified MRR anchors. See the BU Score formula.