I have a free app, and am planning to release a paid version with better/more features. Neither has ads.
What have others seen in terms of percent of users that buy the paid version versus the free version?
I ask because I'm curious what potential, albeit small, of profit my app has.
P.S. I know it can vary widely based on the demand for the features and the app, etc... but curious of what numbers others have seen.
I have 12% of users are switching to the paid version. but I have a business application.
Depends.
From my experience with SaaS apps running the freemium business model, conversion is somewhere between 2 and 4 percent. For other apps, I've heard others mentioning 10 percent. And 25 percent is considered somewhat of a major success. No matter what conversion rate you aim for, make sure your in-app purchases provide real value to the user (measure that by performing tests with different packages, for example). Adding proper gamification is always a bonus.
It varies greatly with different apps, and different app stores. I also have apps with a paid version and a free lite version (without ads). The conversion varies from 2% to 23%. It's much higher on Amazon appstore than on Google Play.
Good luck!
Z6PO said:
It varies greatly with different apps, and different app stores. I also have apps with a paid version and a free lite version (without ads). The conversion varies from 2% to 23%. It's much higher on Amazon appstore than on Google Play.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can I ask which application got a 23% conversion rate?
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app
2%-10% for me depending of the platform. 2% on Android and 10% on iPhone. It's an app in lifestyle category.
For my calculator for 10% of users bought the paid version of the free, live wallpaper for 3%.
ivan-1982 said:
For my calculator for 10% of users bought the paid version of the free, live wallpaper for 3%.
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Click to collapse
Sent from my SGH-T599N using XDA Free mobile app
Related
Not sure if anyone uses this app on a regular basis as I do, but there are some really cool added features coming in the premium version. Syncing and such.
Anyhow, right now they are offering the new premium app for $4.99 on Amazon for life where as after tomorrow, the fee will be $1.99 a month. Seems like a great deal to get it now. I can also say the syncing between phones works great. Mine and my wife's can share the grocery list with no problem.
http://www.amazon.com/Out-Of-Milk-L...1?ie=UTF8&s=mobile-apps&qid=1307122262&sr=1-1
What is the monthly fee for multiple users?
Looks like a pretty good deal for a lifetime subscription, but the Amazon site indicates a small monthly fee to add users (like my wife?) to the app.
Any idea what that fee would be? I'm currently using OurGroceries (with ads). The real-time updating is the important thing for me on the grocery list -- without it, it's really not worth buying.
Guess I'm old fashioned, but paper and pen works for us, and in the grand scheme of life, some things need to be left that way! The day I sync a grocery list is the day I lose my phone, and TV remote to a younger generation.
Mark Sly said:
Looks like a pretty good deal for a lifetime subscription, but the Amazon site indicates a small monthly fee to add users (like my wife?) to the app.
Any idea what that fee would be? I'm currently using OurGroceries (with ads). The real-time updating is the important thing for me on the grocery list -- without it, it's really not worth buying.
Click to expand...
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I bought it on both phones so that I had the license on both. Works great. My wife made me a few lists already.
CaelanT said:
Guess I'm old fashioned, but paper and pen works for us, and in the grand scheme of life, some things need to be left that way! The day I sync a grocery list is the day I lose my phone, and TV remote to a younger generation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL....yea, but I try to keep a better handle on my phone than on a paper list. I would lose the list. At least if you lose your phone, you can call it and find it.
OurGroceries works well and free.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
Check out Cozi it works cross platform and can handle tasks and calendars as well as lists and there is an ad supported version.
If only I could get my wife to actually use it...
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The new app is awesome. It offers many new features and flexability. Only one major problem for preexisting Android users. Now you have to pay to access over the internet while preexisting Apple users do not. http://support-splashtop2.splashtop.com/entries/21825816
*Update*
Seems they have deleted that post (or blocked me one or the other). Now they are offering 1 year free Access Anywhere to preexisting customers. Looks like there are a bunch of people that are upset https://play.google.com/store/apps/...yLDEsImNvbS5zcGxhc2h0b3AucmVtb3RlLnBhZC52MiJd
*Update 2*
I am satisfied with the resolution offered by Splashtop. Personally I think the added features make it the best remote client for Android.
Does the new app offer any significant changes? I only just got around to trying the one included with the Asus stuff, it's pretty neat.
Yes, usability is greatly improved.
1 Year Free Access Anywhere
Is anyone taking them up on the one year free offer?
Yatyas said:
Is anyone taking them up on the one year free offer?
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I will if they change it to a "For life" deal, just like what they have for iOS users. Everyone should get onto the app page and give it one star, and post their disapproval all over Splashtop's page until the backlash makes them realize how wrong they were to pull this on us, and how bad this was for their reputation.
Is this year free deal only in the U.S? I don't see it anywhere in the description? In Canada btw.
Edit: see it now, its under any negative review. But honestly they should give us lifetime for free as well
hutty45 said:
Is this year free deal only in the U.S? I don't see it anywhere in the description? In Canada btw.
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Click to collapse
The year free is only if you had previously purchased Splashtop HD or THD. All new users (iOS or Android) have to pay for Access Anywhere. The offer was given in the user reviews on Google Play. It is their response to the backlash of existing customers.
Thank you for your feedback and support. We understand you have bought Splashtop HD. If you can send an email to [email protected] with your Splashtop ID and Gmail address used to purchase Splashtop HD, we will proceed to give you 1-year Anywhere Access Pack for free. Thank you again, Mark Splashtop CEO
hutty45 said:
But honestly they should give us lifetime for free as well
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Exactly. We have to put the pressure one for 100% equal treatment for Android and iOS users alike, no compromises.
Make your voices heard on their FB page: http://www.facebook.com/Splashtop
Yatyas said:
The year free is only if you had previously purchased Splashtop HD or THD. All new users (iOS or Android) have to pay for Access Anywhere. The offer was given in the user reviews on Google Play. It is their response to the backlash of existing customers.
Thank you for your feedback and support. We understand you have bought Splashtop HD. If you can send an email to [email protected] with your Splashtop ID and Gmail address used to purchase Splashtop HD, we will proceed to give you 1-year Anywhere Access Pack for free. Thank you again, Mark Splashtop CEO
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Click to collapse
Thanks yah I see it now, didn't think to look in the in the reviews. And I own THD so I'm not pleased about having to pay again for this. Already left a review stating this. Thanks though!
Maybe I'm missing something but what is the big difference here?
I have Splashtop THD and the only thing I noticed different is that it offers pinch/zoom.
agentjonnyb said:
Exactly. We have to put the pressure one for 100% equal treatment for Android and iOS users alike, no compromises.
Make your voices heard on their FB page: http://www.facebook.com/Splashtop
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah! Equal treatment! We have to force them to make the app $2.99 on Android!
I would easily pay $2.99 to get a lifetime subscription like previous iOS customers get.
Instead, I get the app for free but have to pay $.99 per month or $9.99 per year once my free year is up.
Somehow they thought this was a good marketing plan?
They try to give reasons such as how in the iOS app store it was made as a replacement app so they are forced to give lifetime subs to previous customers. How is that now supposed to be OUR problem?
---------- Post added at 10:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 AM ----------
hairdewx said:
I would easily pay $2.99 to get a lifetime subscription like previous iOS customers get.
Instead, I get the app for free but have to pay $.99 per month or $9.99 per year once my free year is up.
Somehow they thought this was a good marketing plan?
They try to give reasons such as how in the iOS app store it was made as a replacement app so they are forced to give lifetime subs to previous customers. How is that now supposed to be OUR problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOW.
It looks like they are burning the midnight oil. I sent an email at 1am PST and within 30 minutes they responded:
Thanks very much to be a loyal user. we do appreciate your continuous support.
We've enabled LIFETIME anywhere access for your account, enjoy!
it's really appreciated if you can rate us with 5 star.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It looks like they are starting to see why people are reacting so adversely. All we want is consistency.
I purchased Splashtop THD, have Splashtop HD that came with my ASUS TF201, and also have Splashtop Mobile purchased through the Amazon app store.
So I emailed them a few days ago, and they just responded saying they are giving me 2 years free. A little strange since some are getting lifetime, others a year, and I'm getting 2 years. But I'm ok with that, there will probably be a new version out before the 2 years is up anyways. So email them personally, they'll give you something.
They gave me lifetime as well. When they also explained that iOS users have to pay to download the app, it made more sense of how in the long run, the costs to both parties should be comparable. It seems that each new version would cost iOS users $$ to download, while our subscriptions guarantee us free downloads of any new versions that are released. It would be better however, if they can fix the problem and use the same exact model for both parties. Overall, I feel they are doing the best they can now with the difficulties presented to them, and hopefully it all get fixed soon.
Where do I find my Splashtop I'D?
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As the title says, are in-app purchases as effective as I'd like to think they are?
As we're all fully aware, there are a lot of people around the internet who will do whatever they can to get a game or app that they shouldn't be able to.
Obviously developers have to make money when they choose to because otherwise they could be making a loss and not want to continue to develop any more. What is their best option to make money?
1) They could have a price on their app/game but once paid for, no more money will need to be spent in the app/game.
2) They could use the popular method of creating a free version and a paid version.
3) Have the app/game free of charge but have in-app purchases to make some money from it.
There are of course downsides to each of the options above but in my mind, the best option is 3) because it's not as easy to be able to get around the paying system. The only way around, that I can currently think of, would be by using cheat systems such as GameCih.
Whereas with the other 2 options, it's fairly easy to be able to bypass the required payment.
A perfect example of in-app purchases working is with Shadowgun Deadzone.
If the app had not been free, chances are I wouldn't have been interested in it because I couldn't test it before buying.
As the game is free, I tested the game out and because I thoroughly enjoy the game, I've since bought in game gold numerous times and will continue to do so.
I know that not everyone will have the same mentality as me but it proves, in my case, that in-app purchases work.
What are your thoughts on in-app purchases or what do you feel are the benefits of simply putting a price on the app/game?
From my experience, In App Billing is really good.
In my truck parking game, 3D Truck Parking, there are about 4 level packs for free and 1 that you have to buy with IAB. I must say that I got a lot of purchases daily!
IAB is better, you don't have to maintain two different versions, its easy to set up. Also users can't cancel an order they make through IAB & its linked to their accounts. On a normal paid app you can copy the apk and cancel the order, making it easy to steal.
When i started to work with android app i did two version free and paid. Now i'm sure that it's wrong. One free application with in-app payments is the best choise.
Question
Hi Guys!
I'm writing my academic thesis about the market of the app stores and I would like to interview some developers about the monetization, revenue models etc... If you could answer some questions please contact me at [email protected] It would be a great help! Thank you very much!
Freemium and IAB
Hi,
I believe Freemium is a good model for many apps, specially games.
And IAB is the best option to support the Freemium model, to my experience.
I tried other options such as free app with paid apk acting as an unlock key, which is a quite popular model on the Play Store, but not as powerful and flexible as IAB.
So I would really recommend IAB, specially latest version 3 which is easier to use.
Make sure you use the helper class provided by Google, but be careful, there are a few bugs in it...Look for fixes in stackoverflow !
Good luck!
Eric
I can certainly say I wish I had implemented in app purchasing instead of a free and paid version of the same app. As mentioned before, the ease of not having to maintain two versions, as well as the advantage of free app entry is a big plus. Definitely the way to go if the app is designed in a way that makes sense for that style.
In-apps are gr8, the only problem is that the app must be developed rly good (if not excelent i.e. nice in-game economy) to encurage ppl to use them. Freemium FTW!
I would love to move to IAB but I already have a paid/free app combo in the store. That would just be another app to maintain
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Just to say, Google Play bans ALL apps with in-app purchase here.
Besides, I can't but any apps in GP.
What a shame, Google.
F2P is here to stay
When you look at the top grossing list on both Google Play and iTunes you will see that, in fact, free-to-play titles make more money than paid titles. Of course, market for premium titles will still exist, especially for high-quality utility apps but in games F2P is dominating and, I think, this trend will continue.
As you experienced yourself, this model is super-convenient for players, you can test a game and, if interested, pay for additional items, etc. The only one thing which is tricky is keeping balance, ie. not making a game pay-to-win.
Last but not least, it's so much more exciting from a dev perspective to have 1 million of players enjoying your title than 10k Making money of them is yet another matter.
As a user I still like the idea of purchasing an app once and using it for as long as I like, but maybe I'm getting old...
I don't like the pay2play model, for example in real racing 3 you can only race a couple of rounds and then your car needs maintenance. This maintenance takes just long enough to hate it, but with in game coins you can make it happen instantly, which you can buy with real money.
The same goes for buying new cars: you don't make a lot of money racing so buying a new car takes ages (if you don't pay for quick maintenance that is) but you can again buy credits with real money to make it faster.
This probably makes for a continious money flow for the developers, but it annoys me; I would much rather just pay once and then play forever, and after that maybe pay some more for some dlc or something, but i don't like paying just to keep playing...
I don't mind what model developer choose. But I'm really disappointed by the lack of proper filters in Google Play. Free and Payed is not enough! It's cheating that demo or IAB applications are listed together with really free applications. There should be at least third category, which would gather demo, IAB etc apps - apps that aren't fully free. I would also love to have "open source" category.
Google's IAB is simple to implement in the app/game, but it has a huge disadvantage: if no server verification was implemented, then it is very easy to automatically hack IAB, there are many hacking tools available. Server verification is not an easy to implement. At least, a dedicated server is needed + experience in server programming.
IAP is good, but takes work
I have deployed apps with both IAP as well as the free/paid model.
IAP allows a single app with combined ratings and DL count (and free apps get more casual attention)
IAP takes more work - code, testing, and setup in portal
Paid apps on different app stores are easy. IAP solutions from each app store are not compatible with each other.
I plan to use IAP as the primary model on my next app (as well as ads), with no paid version. We'll see how that goes. I decided to try subscriptions, which is a tougher sell.
For a first app, however, the free/paid model may be much easier for many devs. Just hit a switch to show the no-ad layout (or whatever other features the paid version has) and dump the separate apk up on Google Play.
BTW I blog on ad networks and Android app stores at http://www.projectjourneyman.com. I created a report with charts showing my experience with a paid app as well as a free app w/IAP on Amazon and Google Play (plus paid app on Nook). Getting it signs you up to my email newsletter, but you can unsubscribe right away if you want
As a user I agree with an earlier poster that a once off fee for a full featured product is the most satisfying.
The biggest problem is IAP is that it needs to be very well implemented and generally this is not the case. More often than not it becomes a pay to win scenario which is just silly.
Too many games entice you to make a payment and then you feel you've been robbed as there was little value in the purchase.
I understand it is a good business model to get money from your hard work as a developer but personally I find it almost unethical. It becomes a little like gambling where games are addictive and require you to keep feeding in money to continue playing. This is not dissimilar to the pokie machines (aka slot machines) which are a very political issue here in Australia. I can imagine this pricing model in mobile games also becoming a political issue for similar reason if it is not self regulated by developers.
Also, hacking IAP apps is often pretty easy to do to avoid payment so this model is not immune to piracy.
Developers who depend on freemium might find their market drying up when their customers finally realize it's really a scam.
Im sorry for putting it this way but it's more honest to say so.
Freemiums are making money right now because of new smartphone owners who dont know any better.
But just like kids growing up, they will realize its better to buy outright a game than to keep throwing money into a game to get in game items just to play it well. It becomes pretty expensive later on.
The gold rush isnt going to last.
Here's my 2p's worth as a consumer, not a developer. The Freemium model is OK if its implemented correctly. Hill Climb Racing and Jetpack Joyride are two examples of what I believe to be decent titles. They're both so well made I have ended up spending real money on them both, not because I had to in order to progress or complete them (I'm looking at you Glu Games) but because I enjoyed the titles so much I wanted to play faster and support the developers. As for Real Racing 3, well I've got all the cars fully upgraded and I've never given EA a f***ing penny, nor will I.
There are limits.
I personally love the free / paid app model and almost all the tools and system apps I now use or have used were free versions I found invaluable and subsequently paid for. Hell, I've even bought 'Donate' versions that are exactly the same (Orux Maps) purely because the apps are that good.
Ultimately if people want to steal your work they'll find a way. Theft isn't going anywhere. But neither is the desire to reward decent work that is genuinely good value. I guess the way to get paid is to strive to create something of value.
bong4316 said:
Developers who depend on freemium might find their market drying up when their customers finally realize it's really a scam.
Im sorry for putting it this way but it's more honest to say so.
Freemiums are making money right now because of new smartphone owners who dont know any better.
But just like kids growing up, they will realize its better to buy outright a game than to keep throwing money into a game to get in game items just to play it well. It becomes pretty expensive later on.
The gold rush isnt going to last.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not agree, not all games use aggressive freemium model to milk the money from the users. In-app purchases are often used to buy additional unnecessary content (for example, extra levels) or to remove ads (because all free games are supported by ads). So the game just gives users a choice: either live with ads, or convert game into ads-free version.
nishyt said:
IAB is better, you don't have to maintain two different versions, its easy to set up. Also users can't cancel an order they make through IAB & its linked to their accounts. On a normal paid app you can copy the apk and cancel the order, making it easy to steal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
totally agree! IAP is much better!
I want to promote my app but I only have a budget of 10$. I am not seeking to become flappy bird overnight, I just want to increase the number of users so my admob reaches its payout threshold earlier.
My app already has organic downloads with total installs being 1400, ads current installs being 170.
I have 2 options: Facebook and admob. I know that admob has a good reputation in the field but at the same time its cost for premium countries is around 1$ per click.
On the other hand, Facebook also seems pricey but it looks convincing due to the amount of users willing to (or tricked into) clicking on its ads, and I could also get organic downloads if I run the campaign right.
So what's your experience? Please share with me.
This is an area where many Developers struggle when it comes on to promoting their app. And there isn't really an easy answer.
There are many factors that runs with this; such as, the type of APP you are promoting, Target audience etc. But to answer your question blindly, is your Budget $10 per day or $10 overall ?, if it's overall, then I'd suggest using Google Adwords.. I tested them with a 19$ budget and I gained over 100 installs.
This is the app. All installs are organic.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appsbyusman.simplecolorwallpaper
Which app did you promote? 100 installs for 19$ seems like a really good deal. Also, could you please tell me which countries you targeted? I want to target premium countries so i'll eventually get premium cpc from in app ads. But then I think that if i am earning at high cpc rates then i'll also have to pay for high cpc as well.
My budget is 10$ overall.
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Hi @ XDA
Today I notice that my mobile data cap had been hit on my plan. Looking at my data usage, I see that the Amazon Shopping app has used nearly 3 gigs of data in the last 48 hours. This is clearly absurd and looking at prior months the app has used only in the 10s of megabytes. Does anyone have any insight as to why this could occur? What could be chewing through that amount of data?
Amazon Shopping version 20.20.0.100 running on pixel 2xl on Android 11
Regards
somewhere in your settings under developer options it should give you option to end activities of app when close. Thus the app will not run in the background.