Okay. This is just a few more monetization strategies for you to consider. 1
And one of those is in-app purchases. 2
Now in-app purchases can be either real or virtual. 3
So you're probably already familiar with virtual in-app purchases. 4
These are the gems, the money, the time, the energy, whatever it is. And it's really frequently used in mobile 5
apps that make your gaming experience slightly easier or faster or whatever it is. 6
And the thing with in-app purchases is that both Apple and Google take a 30% cut of whatever 7
it is that you make as long as it's a virtual good. 8
So this is something to be aware of because if you're going to implement because if you're going to 9
implement real world purchases like hailing an Uber cab or selling T-shirts through an app then you 10
should think about using alternative methods for in-app purchases 11
because according to the T and Cs of both app stores, you're allowed to bypass the App Store for purchases 12
only when you're selling something that is non-virtual. 13
So this is something to think about. 14
But of course if you're selling something that doesn't cost you anything and it's just bits and bytes 15
moving around of course then you have to implement payment through the app stores. 16
The other term that you'll hear quite frequently mentioned is the freemium model. 17
So this is basically where you download an app for free and you have certain features that are locks 18
behind a paywall. 19
Now this can be either on a subscription basis such as you know your your services like Dropbox or Spotify 20
or it could just be a one time upgrade to an existing app so that you get some extra features or that 21
you get rid of the ads. 22
Now the freemium model is something that I would highly urge you to consider in this day and time. 23
It's hard to attract a users attention for a paying app currently and it's much easier to give users 24
I would say 80% of the features for your app as a free app and only for those who really use 25
it heavily or really want the premium features then charge those people X amount in order for them to 26
get those other features. 27
That tends to work out a lot better than the apps which give you like 5% functionality free and 28
then the rest you know 95% is locked behind a paywall. That tends to generate bad reviews, bad 29
ratings and reduces your number of downloads. 30
But again of course this varies from app to app and it really depends on what it is that you're 31
building. 32
So have a look at some of the other apps within your own niche that you're building and see how they 33
are monetizing. 34
That's always a good guide. 35
Now finally just three more that I want to mention. One is white labeling and this is something that 36
we do quite frequently at the London App Brewery. 37
So to explain this let me give you an example. 38
Say you're gym and you want to create an app for your members to be able to look at the class timetable 39
to be able to book certain classes update their membership etc. 40
Now your needs won't really be different from another gyms name. 41
So what you do as an app developer is you create something that doesn't have anyone's branding or logo 42
on it and then you approach a gym and you say, "hey would you like an app for your gym?" 43
If they agree if you sign a deal then you reskin it with all of their logo their branding their custom 44
text etc. 45
And this means that you can create one app and sell it again and again and again to the same niche. And 46
it can be a relatively lucrative way of monetizing an 47
app. Next is the partnership model and this is something that's still relatively new and relatively unexplored. 48
One of the first apps that utilized this was Runkeeper and what they did was that they implemented these 49
challenges whereby if you completed say 5,000 meters you would get the reward in the form of a discount. 50
So you could have maybe 20% off Nike shoes. And the nice thing about this is that all three parties 51
involved, 52
so the user, the app developer and the advertiser all benefit from this model. Nobody really loses out. 53
The user gets real life benefits from using the app, the app developer gets more in app usage because 54
people are spurred on by these incentives and the advertiser gets exposure for something that's relatively 55
cheap to implement. 56
So if you're building an app that has real world attachments so say if it's something related to retail 57
or something that's related to the food industry, then you can think about approaching you know brick 58
and mortar shops or companies and asking if they would like to have a sponsorship deal where you get 59
X amount upfront and then depending on exposure you would figure out some sort of deal between the two 60
of you. 61
This is something I really recommend people to think about because it's a relatively unexplored strategy 62
and I've seen it work quite well in a number of cases. 63
The last one that nobody really wants to talk about which I've mentioned already briefly is selling your 64
user data for money. 65
Now the problem with this is one of ethics I guess and conscience. If you look within the privacy policy 66
of a lot of the health and fitness apps that you've got on your phone hidden in there beneath layers 67
and layers of legal jargon is the right to sell your health data. 68
And the problem that I have with this is probably just a personal one. 69
I don't really like the idea that my health and fitness data will be sold to life insurance companies 70
or health insurance companies. I don't really want people to know that you know the last time that went 71
for a run was probably 2009 or that I can eat 12 donuts in a sitting. 72
These are private details 73
and I think that both of the app stores will in the coming years crack down on this practice. 74
I mean at the moment it's still pretty gray whether if it's legal or illegal. 75
But I think this is not a reliable way of monetizing your app 76
and we strongly recommend against it. 77
So those are some of the most common ways of monetizing your app 78
and with every year you see new strategies popping up. 79
And it's something that you have to think really hard about because if you get your monetization strategy 80
right then it's much easier to succeed commercially than if you were you know just go for the default 81
paid app route because everybody is defaulting to that. 82
So have a think about what it is that your app offers, 83
look at some of your competitors within your niche and see what it is that they're doing and think about 84
which of these methods might fit your app best.