Sharpen - College Exam Prep
64
Quality Score
Solid
Sharpen - College Exam Prep
Medium confidence
✍️ bumetric analysis
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Sharpen - College Exam Prep is an iOS app from McGraw-Hill in the News category, currently rated 4.7★ across 3,006 ratings. Initial signal reads as mixed reviews: supporters praise core features while critics cite stability and value gaps.
Quality Score is 64: Solid (established niche player). For a News app, that means established niche player. 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
$760
per month
→
12-mo forecast
$665 – $2397
per month
→
24-mo forecast
$616 – $5545
per month
INDIE 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
Loading…
Rating
—
Reviews
—
Forecast Revenue / mo
—
Snapshots tracked
0
since first record
ONE-TIME · BUILD
💰 Estimated build cost
$110K
↳ What it cost to build · not monthly revenue
Likely range $80K – $150K
$25K · MVP floor
$100K · indie scale
$500K+ · studio build
📈
Slow ROI — current MRR is well below build cost
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 (193 MB) | +$40K |
| ⚙ News complexity ×1.20 | +$18K |
Total estimate
$110K
ONE-TIME · EXIT VALUE
💵 Estimated acquisition value
$10K
↳ What it would sell for · not monthly revenue
Marketplace range $10K – $15K · 16× MRR multiple
💸
~0.1× build cost (under-water)
Synthetic estimate. Multiple band derived from ad-supported + age, rating quality, category demand, and user-base maturity. Calibrated against 2024-2026 indie-app-marketplace closed-deal medians. Full math + comparable deal list on /methodology.
How the multiple was built
| 📺 Ad-supported base | 15× MRR |
| ⭐ ★ rating ≥ 4.7 (premium) | +15% |
| 🏷 News category multiple | -5% |
Final multiple
16× MRR
👥 Estimated audience size
360K
Lifetime downloads (US-equivalent)
Monthly active
54K
Daily active
24K
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
| 📲 News engagement | ~120 installs / rating |
| 🔁 News D30 retention | 15% |
| 📍 DAU / MAU stickiness | 0.45 |
DAU / MAU
44% sticky
🔬
How we forecast this revenue
LOW CONFIDENCEBaseline
$760/mo · ML-estimated from 234 triggers
Growth rate
+6.0% MoM · INDIE tier baseline (compound monthly)
6 months
$648 – $1.5K
12 months
$665 – $2.4K
24 months
$616 – $5.5K
Compound growth at +6.0% MoM (tier baseline for INDIE). Range widens with horizon — typical noise band ±40% at 6mo.. Ranges widen with horizon — distant futures carry more uncertainty.
📊
BU Investment Matrix
Early-stage solo · 44/100INDIE TIERexpected for tierGrowth Velocity
5.0
Founder Strength
3.0
Product Quality
8.5
Revenue Strength
2.9
Monetization Maturity
1.0
Defensibility
4.4
Market Position
0.3
Operational Safety
10.0
- 💰 Revenue: Marginal — $304 - $1901/mo · INDIE tier · medium confidence, trajectory unclear.
- ⭐ Quality: 4.7★ across 3,006 reviews — strong (top 10%).
- 📍 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 = $13K-$24K.
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 9 of 9 triggers
Our ML model uses 200+ signals from public data. These are the most influential for this app:
| Excellent rating (4.7★)METRIC | +$2,200 | |
| bugsREVIEW | −$1,800 | |
| Low install base (3,006 ratings)METRIC | +$1,500 | |
| slowREVIEW | −$1,200 | |
| annoying adsREVIEW | −$1,100 | |
| support teamREVIEW | +$900 | |
| Established app (3y old)METRIC | +$800 | |
| Ad-supported / freemiumMETRIC | +$600 | |
| Single-language (English only)METRIC | −$400 |
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 · v4.3.8
Bug fixes & optimizations
Profile & Insights
Everything we know — and don't — about this app and its company.
Identification
- App name
- Sharpen - College Exam Prep
- Developer
- McGraw-Hill
- Bundle ID
- com.mhe.redi
- App Store URL
- Open in App Store
- Category
- News
- Content rating
- 12+
- Languages
- EN
Company
- Website
- Not found
- Tagline
- Find the path to what's possible.
- Description
- Navigate your educational journey with McGraw Hill. We provide essential tools and resources for both instructors and students to foster effective learning.
- 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
- $761/mo
- Top-grossing rank
- Outside top 100 in US News
- All-time revenue
- Not found
- Pricing
- Not found
Founder
- Name
- Not found
- X / Twitter
- twitter.com/MHEducation
- linkedin.com/company/mcgraw-hill-educ…
- GitHub
- Not found
- X followers
- Not found
- Public statements
- Not found
Funding
Funding data not yet collected for this app.
Press & Links
Press & Links data not yet collected for this app.
Contacts & Socials
- Socials
- facebook facebook.com/McGrawHillEducation · instagram instagram.com/mheducation · linkedin linkedin.com/company/mcgraw-hill-educ… · twitter twitter.com/MHEducation · youtube youtube.com/watch?v=kG2JzZedK3k
- Not found
- Phone
- Not found
- Contact page
- mheducation.com/prek-12/purchase/cont…
- About page
- mheducation.com/highered/discipline/h…
📈Ratings growth3,006 ratings+189% lifetimeShow 3-year history estimate ▾
Tracked (55 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
Sharpen is the new college study app that revolutionizes exam prep.
Sharpen assesses your current knowledge, identifies areas for improvement, and provides personalized AI-driven study recommendations to boost your exam readiness.
Choose from three quiz modes, flashcards, bite-sized videos, chapter summaries, and practice problems, all seamlessly aligned with your college textbook. Or use Ask Sharpen, your AI study buddy, to break down topics and generate new study content tailored to your queries.
Features:… View full description on the official store →
Sharpen assesses your current knowledge, identifies areas for improvement, and provides personalized AI-driven study recommendations to boost your exam readiness.
Choose from three quiz modes, flashcards, bite-sized videos, chapter summaries, and practice problems, all seamlessly aligned with your college textbook. Or use Ask Sharpen, your AI study buddy, to break down topics and generate new study content tailored to your queries.
Features:… View full description on the official store →
App Specs
🔐 Own this app? Claim & verify MRR →💾 193 MB🔞 12+📱 iOS 17.0+🔖 v4.3.8🔄 updated 0d ago🌐 EN📂 News💰 Free
📅
What Worked™ · Development Pipeline
8 EVENTS TRACKEDDetected changes in this app over its tracked lifetime — each event links cause (what changed) to effect (what moved). Sorted newest first.See full history →Version history →
2026-05
🔄
Monetization changed: freemium → free
2026-03
⭐
Rating ↑ 2.81 → 4.70 (improved 1.89★)
2026-03
📈
Crossed 500 ratings — social-proof flywheel kicking in
2025-02
📈
Crossed 100 ratings — social-proof flywheel kicking in
2023-08
📈
Crossed 50 ratings — social-proof flywheel kicking in
2022-10
⭐
Rating ↓ 4.67 → 4.30 (dropped 0.37★)
2022-10
📈
Crossed 10 ratings — social-proof flywheel kicking in
2022-10
🚀
First tracked snapshot — initial data captured
🔔
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📝 Description
95
BU Score · Transcendent
Full revenue analysis
Read the article-style breakdown for Sharpen - College Exam Prep: category rank, percentile, growth signal, comparable apps, and how the forecast is calibrated against verified-MRR anchors in this niche.
About this analysis
Why medium confidence: 3,006 ratings · no founder-verified revenue (model estimate only).
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
4 answers · auto-generated from this app's public dataHow much does Sharpen - College Exam Prep make per month?▴
Based on our ML-calibrated revenue forecast, Sharpen - College Exam Prep earns approximately $760/mo. This is a US-storefront-equivalent estimate; global revenue can be several times larger for internationally-distributed apps. See the methodology page for the full formula and confidence bands.
What apps are like Sharpen - College Exam Prep?▴
Browse the full News category catalog to find similar apps with revenue, build cost, audience and tech stack data. Each /p/{slug} page also shows a Compare side-by-side widget with three peer apps from the same niche.
Who makes Sharpen - College Exam Prep?▴
Sharpen - College Exam Prep is published by McGraw-Hill 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 Sharpen - College Exam Prep's BU Score?▴
Sharpen - College Exam Prep has a BU Score of 64/100 (Solid). The score combines App Store rating, ratings count, monetization model and revenue signals calibrated against founder-verified MRR anchors. See the BU Score formula.