Good article. I have often wondered a few things about pricing. The first is.. to me the $1 price point always seems to be the primary price that most apps go for, if they charge, primarily because at least when app stores first hit, it seemed the price that most people would think "it's a buck.. no big deal..if I like it great if not it's only a buck". Sure.. $2, $3, etc could all fit in that same line of thinking for the most part, but to me, my thought has always been.. a buck is no big deal, everyone can afford a buck if they have a $50+ a month phone plan. It doesn't typically require having a huge expectation of the app.. if it's really good, some may think they would pay more for it while others may pass the word on how great it is for just being a buck. Meanwhile, if word spreads and you get 100,000, 1mil, etc downloads at a buck.. if you're a single developer, after your 70% cut you're making fantastic money. I've no idea how taxes and such fit in with this, but a rough range of developer salaries in the US is between perhaps 60K to 120K a year.. so if you can have your app bring in similar money, at least you're working on something you hopefully love and can work from home and make enough to survive on. If it does more.. all the better (well at least until you start paying more taxes).
I've also just started thinking about in-app purchases. It seems to me a LOT of games are giving the game free, but severely hindering the game without in-app purchases or a very prolonged play time. For example games that require various sorts of made up currencies that you can buy with real money, or earn in the game very slowly so that if you want to enjoy the game you pretty much have to buy stuff in the game. To me.. that's just a BAD recipe. I am seeing tons of comments on various games where people uninstall the game and don't play any more because of this model. To me.. it's just stupid for a developer to require in-app purchases to get further in the game at a normal pace. To me, in-app purchases should be extra things that you don't need, but could set you apart, identify you in a social setting, etc. For example, a snowboarding game.. you could sell cool custom boards that give you a slight boost perhaps, but are not required to keep playing further at a regular pace. Or perhaps custom clothing, new levels, etc. I could even see in-app subscription costs to allow multiplayer to work.. as typically a game would require some server to handle multiplayer and that costs money. I am more confused about non-games providing in-app purchases. There are some apps that could make good use of this..much like how Photoshop has plugins that you can purchase for new capabilities.. an app like Camera ZoomFX could have in-app filters to buy for a buck a pop maybe. What scares me most.. is wondering if my app will be bought at all. I have what I feel is a handy little app idea that I am working on, and based on about 2 dozen chats with friends, all agree. However, I am still not sure it would be worth any money. So I ask this.. how does an app like Evernote, and some others, make money if they are free? They have millions of downloads.. so the shear numbers could bring in some revenue somehow.. but I am unclear how you get all that traffic to say, a web site where I might place ads of some sort. I still don't understand how viewing a web page with ads earns money.. I get it if a user clicks on an ad to go to that ad's site, but just viewing it..I mostly ignore ads or close windows to sites that pop up ads in my face. I do need to read up a bit more on admob and the likes to understand it..but if you make money just by placing 10 ads on a page, and somehow your free app with millions of installs can direct that traffic to view your page, I suppose there would be some way to make money from that? If the above is possible, then is it better to give an app for free hoping to score tons of downloads and convert those into viewers of your site where ad revenue pays you? How can you even gauge that your installers would go visit your site, especially if your app is stand-alone.. doesn't need any sort of server interaction? I forget now..but once you're app is free, you can't charge any more right? So putting an app up for $1, and it's not doing well, then lowering it to free.. you can't change it back to a buck later? I am not nearly ready to publish my app so I haven't looked into all these things just yet. On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 1:55 AM, Prashant Singh <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi Folks > > Hope you are doing well and New Year stared on a good note for you . > sometime back I published an article on Pricing of Mobile Apps in which I > shared my learning on how can a developer decide on right pricing for their > apps. I am sharing the same with you and would like to have your > prespective on the same . > > http://www.medianama.com/2013/01/223-the-pseudo-science-of-app-pricing/ > > Looking forward to your feedback . > > -- > > Prashant Singh, > Co-Founder, Signals <http://thesignals.net/> > Email *:* [email protected] > Cell : +91-9910270434 > > Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/wethesignals> | > Twitter<https://twitter.com/TeamSignal> > | Blog <http://blog.thesignals.net/> > > "If someone's using a PC to demo the Next Big Thing... then it's not the > next big thing."~Russell Beattie > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Android Discuss" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en.
