App Pricing Strategies

General (non-technical) Marketing and Monetization
#1

A little background. Some years back I wrote for the Palm OS. I got in at about the right time, and I made money with one of the apps I distributed. For me, a significant amount of money.

But I did find one strange thing in pricing. Price too low, and your app won’t sell. Too high won’t either, but the low pricing always confused me. What I finally figured out, after reading and discussions and some thought of my own, was that if an app was priced too low (but not free), people didn’t think of it as a quality application and wouldn’t buy it. There was a sweet spot in app pricing, and it completely depended on the app itself.

So, I’m trying to figure out how to price my next app.

I’m getting close to releasing another game for iOS and Android. I wouldn’t have written another game, but I found an idea that wasn’t yet represented in the app store.

And, I look at pricing. It seems that very nearly all the games with high download numbers are 99 cents. Sure, there are a few higher, but not that many. I’m relatively sure that my app doesn’t have the appeal of, say, Angry Birds, on the other hand I’m also sure there is some desire for it out there.

Finally, I also need to factor something else in. I have to be completely honest with myself. If my app is anything like a success, others will jump in, and some of those people have many more resources than I, as an independent developer, can bring to the table.

So, the big question is, do you charge 99 cents, hoping for volume, and hoping that people don’t think it’s just another cheap, poorly written app, or, do you charge $3.00 and try to make back what you put into it, knowing that you’ll get fewer sales?

The competition in games is so severe that I know it’s difficult to make anything, so I need to price in a way that will get me the most revenue.

Or is it much simpler? It will either be a success and make a significant amount of money, or it won’t make any, and so I might as well charge the lower price just to try to get people to buy?

Sean.

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#2

I think conventional pricing wisdom kind of got blown out of the water with the App Store.

99 cents is the new $24.95 and $6.99 is the new $49.95 – or something like that. :wink:

If you charge more than 99 cents for a game on the App Store there should probably be a very apparent reason as to why it’s more expensive than most others.

It would be cool if the “base price” would have stabilized at something like $10, but dreaming about that is kind of a waste of time. :slight_smile:

Jay
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#3

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps [import]uid: 12108 topic_id: 8153 reply_id: 31033[/import]

#4

HorseHunter EXTREME!! LOL. Thanks for that jhocking. [import]uid: 20687 topic_id: 8153 reply_id: 32227[/import]

#5

Hi guys,

Great conversation! I think the only “sure” way to win in this game is to have many, many apps in the store. That is why Corona SDK is such gift. Only with a tool like this, you can churn apps after apps in a short amount of time (after the learning curve of course)

It seems to me that at this point, making it big in the app store is really more luck than anything else. Because of that having 10-20+ apps will give us more chance to make it rather than counting on one or two apps. It will also help smooth out daily sales. Think stock investing!

My 2 cents…

Mo. [import]uid: 49236 topic_id: 8153 reply_id: 39516[/import]