On Sunday, January 13, 2013 11:49:45 AM UTC-8, andjarnic wrote: > > 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 >
I'd encourage you to be more creative than "most apps". Studies show that there is more buying resistance between 0 and 0.99 than there is between 0.99 and 1.99. Sure it is everyone's dream to price at $1 and hope to sell millions. But a low price doesn't guarantee you will sell millions, not by a long shot. Even making your app free won't guarantee a million downloads. > 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. > You are not thinking of this very scientifically. Because you hate that model (I do too) and because you have heard of people who uninstall, does NOT mean it is not effective. The truth is quite different. Look at the top 100 grossing apps and see how many are being successful selling tokens. That doesn't mean your ideas for other things to sell in a game won't work, though. 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. > Then you are not being creative enough. You've already thought of one example. You can think of more. Any app can sell an expanded version, in place of a free and then paid app. A game can sell more levels An art app can sell art A music app can sell music A movie app can sell movies A reader app can sell books. A navigation app can sell maps/guides A _____ can sell _____ (fill in the blank) > 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. > If you have people to query, then you can ask them about the business model as well. Then, ask yourself if those two dozen people represent a certain kind of persona - a potential customer. Then do some research to find out if such people are common on planet earth. Use the Google keyword tool, find out how many people per month are searching for keywords related to your apps' topic. Look at Amazon, see the sales rank of books or gear related to your topic. Look at similar apps to your idea( of course your idea is unique, but I mean the closest thing you can find). See if those apps rank in the top grossing apps or if they have less than 50 downloads. Then get your app out as soon as possible, and get your first few sales and build your confidence from there. > 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? No. Not in my opinion. In app ads can be a good business model, but in my opinion, the app should have value enough that you think people *would* pay for it. They are paying for it one way or another. 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? > They won't in any large numbers. Don't count on it. If you think you can get enough users to make money with ads, put those ads in your app. > 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. > True, but you can ... . Add in app billing that will allow them to unlock the full version for a buck, or any price you want. After your free version has successfully found thousands of users and you have surveyed them to find what they want most and would be most likely to pay for. Nathan -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/android-discuss/-/Dm7d-djvqpUJ. 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.
