Comments for How to Price Your iPhone App

How to Price Your iPhone App

2009-09-09T02:00:00Z

When Smule's Ge Wang, Lyricfind's Darryl Ballantyne and Tapulous' Bart Decrem got together to discuss mobile applications at the San Fran Music Tech Summit, the hottest subject was application pricing. While music publishers have searched far and wide for better monetization strategies, few facets of the business have shown the same revenue growth as mobile apps. Thanks to the iPhone, customers are used to paying for mobile applications and according to Appsfire, all but one of the top grossing apps is priced above $2.99.

]]> Appsfire recently released a list of the top 50 grossing apps in the App Store and the results are surprising. Based on a sample compiled from 1200 devices and calculated using a UNITS SOLD x UNIT PRICE formula, only Flight Control is priced as low as 99 cents.

Applications such as multi-surveillance video feed app iRA Pro ($899.99), mobile podcasting application Poddio (149.99) and TomTom's Western European navigation app ($139.99) are the list's most expensive products. Meanwhile, more well known apps like Tweetie ($2.99), Midomi's music identifier ($4.99) and Air Sharing ($4.99) are more moderately priced at the low end of the spectrum.

Says Appsfire, "If your app brings something real to the table, be it a game or a utility...then price it accordingly. The price is right when there is a salary at the end of the month. Don't succumb to the temptation of the 99 cent app, it's a lure and only serves to feed the get-rich-quick fairy tales that even kids would find hard to believe."

Developers should remember to calculate Apple's percentage into the pricing structure as well as the fact that the top downloaded apps are not necessarily the top grossing applications. To see the complete list of top grossing apps check out the Appsfire release.

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2009-09-09T18:40:57Z

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Comment from maroc annonce on 2009-09-09

2009-09-09T18:39:17Z

Il y a plusieurs iphone Apps disponible qui dépend de leurs caractéristiques pertinentes. Travail agréable. Merci pour le partageant.

Comment from CB on 2009-09-09

2009-09-09T14:48:49Z

"all but one of the top grossing apps is priced below $2.99", it means only one apps is priced over $2.99

Comment from Finn Jack on 2009-09-09

2009-09-09T13:17:00Z

UNITS SOLD x UNIT PRICE..
Thanks for sharing the formula for pricing apps. The idea is needed for both developers and users.

Comment from Johan Ronnestam on 2009-09-09

2009-09-09T08:46:11Z

I'd like to ad a strategy that I think is hilarious.

Spotify. They release their app for free. None of the money passes by Apple. But then in order for you to use it you have to be a premium member - drives sales as hell and they're keeping all the profits since the actual transaction takes place over at the Spotify website.

In other words - Spotify has managed to use Apples app store in order to compete with the iTunes Store (note that you can make all Spotify music available offline) and Apple can't do anything about it but watch.

Comment from disque dur externe on 2009-09-08

2009-09-09T06:56:11Z

This post seems to gloss over the point about VALUE.

Sure, sell your app for $9.99 if you want. But it'd better be worth it.

And almost all of the apps ON the app store are little quick pieces of fluff, barely even worth 99 cents.

Even the better pieces of software are mostly timesavers or memory aids, games notwithstanding.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that there is this expection to spend a few weeks and crank out an app, then live on it for a year, when I just don't think this could be the case.

iPhone apps just aren't as big or useful as desktop apps. I'm not saying there aren't useful apps, but come on, you're not gonna see Photoshop or Visual Studio or.. World or Warcraft for the iPhone any time soon.

And this doesn't even get into the fact that a lot of apps I could use can be replicated just by opening the browser and going to a website. And that one app I WOULD buy, I can't, without jailbreaking. (Ah, Podcaster. C'est la vie. And that app is only 4.99 too.)

Comment from iPhone Developers on 2009-09-08

2009-09-09T06:27:01Z

There is several iphone Apps available which depends on their relevant features. Nice work. Thanks for sharing

Comment from Michael Khalili on 2009-09-08

2009-09-09T06:01:29Z

I'm upfront about who I am and what I'm doing. I'm stating facts about appsfire having bugs and providing an alternative. It has had many problems crashing preference panel for users and doesn't work with encrypted backups.

Appsfire has limitations that readers of rww should know about. It may work for you but if you follow @appsfire you'll see a lot of support for people having problems with it.

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2009-09-08

2009-09-09T05:49:07Z

Michael, Appsfire works great for me as of its latest update. I'd be skeptical of Yappler if it's lead by a person who trashes competitors in blog comments. That's got to be the least classy way you could promote your service.

Comment from Michael Khalili on 2009-09-08

2009-09-09T04:38:11Z

Appsfire crashes the preference panel of some users, doesn't work with encrypted backups, jail broken phones and god only knows what else.

Skip the appsfire hassle and get something that works. Http://Yappler.com/Sync doesn't crash preference panel, works with encrypted backups and jail broken phones.

Yappler.com Sync just works.