So one of the most obvious ways that everybody thinks of immediately is paying for apps up front. Now 1
paid apps are really easy to implement. 2
And essentially it's when you list your app onto either the Google Play store or the Apple App Store, 3
you essentially just set a price tier. 4
And those tiers are determined by the app stores themselves. 5
So as a new developer it's very easy to assume that this is you know the way that you should go. 6
And the reason for that is mostly guided by results on the apps that you see. For example this is an 7
app called Fit Men cook that was developed by some friends of ours and essentially features a whole 8
bunch of healthy recipes by a blogger called Kevin curry. 9
So they basically launched on the App Store and within the first day they hit the number 2 spot in 10
the top paid iPhone apps with a pricing model of $2.99. 11
They were wedged between Monument Valley and Minecraft. 12
So you can see that these people did really really well off this app essentially. 13
And you can mistakenly think like, "Oh so you know that's how I should monetize. 14
I should just price it at $2.99 and put my app onto the App Store and it will perform equally well." 15
But the thing that you don't realize is that there's a number of behind the scenes factors that determined 16
the success. Not only the fact that it was a great app but also a number of factors that related to how 17
they went about promoting it. 18
So the biggest factor in that is the the guy Kevin Curry who I think got 50 percent of the revenue of 19
the app without really contribution to the development of it other than his recipes. 20
But he has a huge following. He has a blog with tens of thousands of subscribers, a Twitter page with 21
you know 20K followers and a Facebook page with again you know hundreds of thousands of people who 22
like it. 23
So what that means is that this guy is a serious influencer in this field and on the day of launch or 24
even prior to launch, he can gear up his subscribers his followers his fans to download this app within 25
the first 24 hours. 26
The thing you have to realize is that on both the Google app store as well as the Apple App Store, the 27
first 24 hours, 7 days and 30 days of your apps performance is crucial to getting it featured or 28
getting it highlighted in some sort of ranking. 29
So if you are able to achieve a massive amount of downloads on day 1 within the first 24 hours that 30
sends a huge spike and a signal to the app stores. 31
Potentially furthering your exposure by featuring it somewhere or getting it listed in the top paid 32
apps. 33
So that sort of stops a snowball effect that gets you more and more downloads and sustains you within 34
the rankings. 35
So this is one way in which paid apps can work really well. 36
If you find that you can partner with a influencer in a particular niche that applies to your app and 37
even if they don't do anything at all for the development of your app if they can bring the people from 38
day 1, then it's well worth going down that route. 39
Now another way in which paid apps can work is if you're developing something that the world has never 40
seen before. 41
So this is an app developed by a guy called Peter Bentley who's a friend of mine and he created an app called 42
iStethoscope Pro. 43
Now what he realized was that the iPhone had superior acoustic hardware than it needed to for a telephone. 44
And this was because it inherited a lot of that hardware that audio hardware from the iPod which as 45
we all know the iPhone is built upon. So upon realizing that, he decided to tap into the microphone 46
of the iPhone and he built an app that allows you to point the phone at your heart or at your lungs 47
and put on some headphones to listen to your heartbeat or your lung sounds. 48
And he didn't actually do very much advertising at all but he got a massive amount of media attention 49
just because of how innovative this was. 50
This was a way of turning your phone into potentially a medical device. 51
And in fact having used it for a while I can say that using iStethoscope Pro app with the iPhone is almost 52
as good as some of the £300 £400 pound electronic stethoscopes that are out there on the market. 53
And in addition to that you can also record your heart sounds or your lung sounds and send it to your doctor by email 54
for example, which is a huge boon. 55
And I think they are currently building some sort of research project where they are collecting a lot 56
of people's heart and lung sounds for research purposes which is really cool as well. 57
But essentially when this app came out, it was priced at I think 99 cents which at the time was the lowest 58
priced tier. 59
He got a massive amount of traction and a massive amount of revenue from this. 60
And I think just from the revenue from this one app alone he bought a five bedroom house somewhere in 61
London which is incredible. 62
So if you're building something that's really unique and I mean it really unique it's not just you know 63
some variation of something that already exists that has a huge amount of value for people something 64
like this, 65
then you are well within your rights to make it a paid app and you will see revenue from it. 66
Now a third example is where you have the rights to some sort of intellectual property. 67
So for example, if you own a question bank for a Bar prep course or medical exams, then you are certainly 68
expected to charge for that information. 69
And a lot of people do and they actually charge quite a lot. 70
So a lot of these Bar prep courses or question banks or quizzes actually average something like around 71
£20 to £30. 72
So if you have domain knowledge in something such as law or medicine and you create a question bank 73
then this is a really easy way of creating a niche and relatively lucrative app that can be paid upfront. 74
Now one of the things that we always get asked about were relating to paid apps is how you should price 75
it. And what we've noticed through the years is that pricing apps on the App Store is a very delicate 76
matter. 77
People's psychology is very funny about pricing. What you find is that if you have an app that is you 78
know maybe a single use app or maybe entertains people for 30 minutes, then you can charge anywhere less 79
than $1.99 and people will be fine with that. 80
People are okay with the idea of spending you know the equivalent of a cup of coffee on an app and even 81
if its not the most amazing app in the world, they're happy with paying that amount just for a bit of 82
novelty a bit of discovery. 83
But once you hit the $1.99 threshold and you go above it, people get really angry 84
in the review section if your app is not something spectacular. And there's actually a website that 85
collects a bunch of apps that are priced relatively ridiculously say for example the Professional Chef 86
app that's $50 or the Water Globe that's $220. 87
So what we tend to recommend is you know start off low and see how people are responding to your app 88
if they're liking it. 89
And then as you add more features and as you have more positive reviews if you feel like the app is 90
under valued then you can raise it by a dollar at a time and see how people respond to it. And you eventually 91
reach an equilibrium where people feel like they're getting enough value for what they're paying and 92
you feel like your app is being bought at the right price. 93
So play around with pricing is what we're trying to sing.