Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
How to sell an iPhone app for $9.99
Marco over on the Instapaper blog (which, of course, is the blog of the app Instapaper), posted a really interesting commentary recently on a subject we've been following since the beginning: App Store pricing. As we've said before, it's a strange thing -- developers want higher prices so that they can put more effort into making iPhone apps better. But customers have a perception already that anything above $5 in the App Store just isn't worth it.So Marco offers his take: he's been selling an app in the store for $9.99, and it's going just fine. He has tips for how developers can sell their own apps for a higher price, and he settles on some good compromises for everybody: deliver a real value with your app (as economists know, an app is worth what people are wiling to pay for it, so if you produce an app that is worth $10, people will happily spend that much). Respect yourself as a developer, and don't cower to cheapskates (some people won't be happy with anything, even when it's free). And perhaps most importantly: offer a free version.
That last one may be the key -- our own Michael Rose was sold on Instapaper only when he tried it out. More and more, I'm thinking that it was a major mistake on Apple's part not to allow developers to easily offer demos and upgrades in the same app -- people are willing to spend money on an app that's worth it, but not if they aren't sure, and trying it goes a long way to making sure. I'm not in favor of app store developers banding together to raise prices, but Marco is right: if you make an app that's worth $10 and put it on the App Store for $9.99 (with an easy way to demo it out), people will come and buy it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Andersen said 7:30PM on 11-24-2008
Try before you buy makes so much sense; I don't know why Apple won't institute it. I needed a good IM app I could access my business Jabber account through, and I spent a few bucks trying some that just didn't cut it. I heard great things about BeejiveIM, but the steep price left me hesitant, because I couldn't be sure it was going to do what I needed it to do. In the end, I bit the bullet and coughed up the cash and tried it; happily, it did in fact work the way I wanted it to, but that could easily have been a negative experience.
If I don't have a problem spending thirty, fifty, a hundred bucks on Mac software that does what I want, I'm not going to shy away from spending $10 or $20 for iPhone apps.
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Lane said 9:48PM on 11-24-2008
This definitely needs to be implemented. Unfortunately, Apple has its own way to do EVERYTHING :(
Donald Stidwell said 7:42PM on 11-24-2008
I'm frankly astounded at how cheap most apps on the App Store are. Look at the prices of Windows Mobile software and Blackberry software and just about everything in the App Store is a bargain. I routinely pay anywhere from $10-$40 on Windows Mobile software. The big advantage is that almost every WinMo developer includes a trial so when you do buy you know exactly what you're buying and that the app is worth it to you.
The lack of the ability to trial apps is a HUGE pitfall of the App store and one of the major reasons I never bought any paid applications when I had my iPod Touch. I wasn't willing to participate in a crap shoot.
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jpturner said 7:49PM on 11-24-2008
Andersen, you are so right on this one. Apple could easily make the app delete itself with a pre-delete warning offering a purchase option or 5 day trial extension etc.
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who? said 7:54PM on 11-24-2008
I always thought that the Lite or Free version of an app counted as a demo. Just because it doesn't say DEMO in huge lettering doesn't make it anything less. I mean, what happens if you like it? You buy the full version on the mobile app store and delete the Lite one. It's simple, and it doesn't require people to download a locked or upgradeable demo version that has the full version built-in, taking up unnecessary space.
Lite/Free = Demo
Get with the program TUAW!
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Cory said 4:01PM on 12-04-2008
As a developer, this isn't exactly true. With a demo version, you can give users the full experience of the app with a 5 day time limit so they can really try it out and see if they like it. With a lite/free app, Apple does not allow any sort of time limit at all so you need to remove functionality from the app in order to keep from giving away too much for free. If your free version does too much, then people won't bother paying for the real version. If it doesn't do enough, then people can't get the idea of the app and they won't want to use the full version. Creating an entirely different version of an app can be time consuming, modifying your code to remove some features without breaking too many others can be a pain. If Apple provided a demo service that would just deliver your full app with a week's trial or something, that would mean no extra time on my part and the consumer gets to sample the product before purchasing.
who? said 9:19PM on 11-24-2008
I guess in that one way it is a bit dodgey for developers, but time-trial software is (in my opinion) one of the worst things ever invented.
That being said, I see your point (limited as it is) and I see how a demo based on time used could appeal to a small population of the iPhone/iPod touch market, especially the developers.
Luigi193 said 8:14PM on 11-24-2008
OPEN SOURCE!!!
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cmuska902 said 8:49PM on 11-24-2008
iPhone hacker's work feverishly for little to no income. It's called being passionate. While I'm all for developers making money, there's nothing I love more than people willing to develop solely for a good cause, and publicity.
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Rudy said 9:07PM on 11-24-2008
yeah i haaaate spending more than 2.99 but some apps are worth their high price. i bought beejive im for $16. i hated myself for it but i can delete all the other crap im apps now ( im looking at you mobilechat) because its basically perfect. newsstand was also pricey for an rss reader but it's flawless. the only app i regret spending money on was mobilechat. i lost $2 on something that didnt work and that really pisses me off.
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Dave said 10:44PM on 11-24-2008
I have only ever purchased 2 apps that were $9.99 and they both had "lite" versions. That said, if *every* app had a "demo," I would buy a heck of a lot more apps.
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Randy said 1:59AM on 11-25-2008
I'm sorry, but as a seasoned developer, I know that the vast majority of iPhone apps are a few dialogs and a SQLite database. In fact, even some of the better apps can be written in a week or two at the most.
Given this significantly lower cost of development, asking anything more than a few bucks for these apps is just simple greed. In general they have a fraction of the functionality of similar desktop alternatives, and as a result they should cost a fraction of those alternatives.
Get over it. Can the greed, and just write more apps of better quality. Selling 1000 copies per month at $9.95 for a few dialogs is damn good money for any developer, in any country.
R
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Kai Cherry said 3:11PM on 12-04-2008
I'm calling you on this, chief.
I don't know what you are developing for, but if you are developing for the iphone and your notion of what an iPhone app is is merely a wrapper on some selects and joins, you are 100 percent full of grade a doo-doo poop. :)
Now, while it is POSSIBLE to create an app such as you describe, Im gonna have to say that the majority of the 99 cent apps are far more deep that that that are coming from the indies, as opposed to the iFund Churn factories...because they *have* to be to rise about the bullshit.
And make NO MISTAKEN, boys and girls, *Apple* created this mess @ WWDC with the Sega $9.99 shim-sham.
See, in the Really-for-Real world, you don't have a franchise full of art, music and marketing assets you can re-purpose for a new platform and basically resell. When Apple set that bar where they did, they basically told a lot of the best and brightest that already were playing in Apple's sandbox to take a walk. $9.99 is a very low pricepoint to sell *anything* for that actually has a cost to create...unless you get your labor and assets for pennies.
Couple this with some of the other real-world business limitations of the current model and you get an ecosystem where for some it is hard to do anything *but* the kinds of apps you denigrate...and funny enough, Apple doesn't seem to mind having them by the truckload.
Kai Cherry said 3:14PM on 12-04-2008
please note that Typonese is my native tongue ;)
-K
freddie said 3:05AM on 11-25-2008
If lite versions were offered to try, then I'd definitely be more likely to purchase an app for $9.99, if it really was useful. Currently, I won't go above $3.99 for an app, because many times you just don't know what the quality of the app will be.
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Jon said 4:46AM on 11-25-2008
It'd be so easy for Apple to implement demos. They already wrap the apps in DRM to prevent you passing them on to someone else, so it'd be no trouble at all to implement the same expiration system they use for movie rentals.
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kyle said 11:47AM on 11-25-2008
Interesting comments.
Personally, I believe that offering demos is somewhat a double edged sword. Sure, you let people try your app out--but that may be the problem. Even if your app is good, people have a good chance of saying "OK, I tried that--it was cool, but I don't think I'll use that so much that I should pay $10+ for it." If you offer the user a choice between free and $$ the user will 9/10 download the free trial. I'd bet a good amount of people would just have bought the app anyway. Now, you're expecting the user to try the demo and then come back and buy the full version...that's a lot of work to get a mobile app.
I recently read an interview on Cliff B, a video game developer, who kind of confirmed these thoughts:
"A beta is like hooking up with a girl just to say, “yeah, I f*cked her.” I know that sounds crude, but it’s the honest-to-God truth. Once you play a beta, you can check it off your list — you can say, “yeah, I played it.” Then you might not feel motivated to get that initial cherry popping from the proper, final game."
Just my $0.02
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Alex Zhou said 11:17PM on 11-30-2008
Dear all,
I represent a China-based consultancy and we have a professional team who are able to turn your ideas into iPhone applications with their expertise. (We are also have teams specialized in developing mobile software for other platforms such as Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, J2ME, etc.) Our senior iPhone engineers usually have more than 3 years experience in Mac & Cocoa and just transitioned to iPhone once its SDK launched.
What people can gain from us is more than development. Our team do project management, design and quality assurance (including but not limiting to testing). Like Brian Jeremy Kupetz said, we have sound development processes involving R&D, architecture, use cases, risk management, QA, stress testing, unit testing, code reviews, version control, even change management. We continuously prove our processes to be more efficient because iPhone projects' term is usually shorter than that of regular software projects.
Also considering user experience is critical for iPhone app, we employ design expert experienced in mac to do user experience design. I believe this capability will also add much value to our service and worth our clients pay more than pure programming service.
And our team adopts 2 best practices for iPhone projects - iterative development and prototyping. We use prototype to reach agreement with clients on user experience and functionalities before we dive into concrete implementation.
Based in China, our charge rate would be very flexible. If you have a great idea but limited budget, we may be your good choice. Even though, developers here don't need to worry about the competition at all. As Raven said, the demand for iPhone developers exceeds the supply and I don't see that changing anytime soon. And we are just the few companies in China who are capable to do iPhone projects. So just take it easy. :)
If people here ask me why we don't develop and ship to app store by ourselves, I would say we are not marketing experts and don't understand iPhone market in US and Europe.
I hope we can work with passionate entrepreneurs to create mutual success together. I really enjoy that feeling of success. Anyone interested pls drop me an email at:ming.zhou@roylead.com
Our website is: www.roylead.com
Thanks for your patience..
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claidheamdanns said 11:11AM on 12-02-2008
I totally agree that Apple should have (a LONG time ago) made a way for developers to offer an expiring demo version of their apps. I constantly try out free version of apps, and if I like them, I DO buy them. If they sick, well then, I haven't wasted any money. I hate taking a chance on a pay-only app, only to find out that it was USELESS. I won't name any names here; I've left my reviews on the app store.
But all in all, I fault Apple for this. I have been a long-time Mac user, since before there was a Mac, and I've Apple make some pretty stupid decisions lately. Problem is, they're still better than a PC, so we're kind of stuck with them. But seriously, if there was another decent platform out there, I'm at the point where I would leave Apple.
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StationStops for iPhone said 11:36AM on 12-02-2008
As an iPhone developer, I cringed at that article which got widely circulated about the Tris developer who made $250,000 his first two months. It makes iPhone development sound like alchemy, and any developer who sells for more than X is some sort of greedy millionaire.
Tris is a great game and I am happy for his success, but users should realize that a lot of non-game apps have relatively tiny markets and most will not recoup the cost of development, much less profit, and that is one reason why prices can be higher.
I charge $5.99 for my app, and its selling very well, although I doubt I can get the sell-through to the relatively small regional target market that I will ever recoup the cost of the Mac and the 200+ hours I put into the app.
I agree that demos would be great. A lot of people are doing this ad-hoc with 'lite' versions but to standardize it would be fantastic.
Also, it would be great if there were a way for people to browse and buy apps in their web browser and have them 'sent' to the phone. Web marketing apps is very difficult as an iTunes link is awkward (and useless if the user is not on their iTunes library machine).
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