Mobile Evolution - Thoughts, insight, and experiences related to the mobile software industry

Your gut reaction is “Hey, I put in a lot of time and effort into this app, there's no way it's only worth 99c.” Yet in many cases, if it's not 99c, especially a game, it's dead-on-arrival at the AppStore. You can rant and you can rave, but market pricing rules in the mobile universe. On the plus side, the “wealth” is spread amongst many developers as consumers consume more apps than they would have if they had spent $35 or more on one game or app. The trick is to get more of them to consume your app! But let's start at the beginning, should all apps price to the bottom? If not, how do you select that perfect price? And how do you take advantage of that price selection (or change) in your marketing efforts? In this next post in my series, “Applying the 4P's of Marketing to Apps,” I'll focus on the third “P”—Pricing. I'm not covering business models (freemium vs paid, or free version vs IAP upgrade), but rather, how to pick your price from a marketing perspective.

Maximizing revenue on the AppStore is the goal of every developer. Setting the right price and changing it at the right time (increase or sale) is truly an art. Many variables are at play, but if you experiment carefully, you can find the sweet spot for revenue. This sweet spot may surprise you, so it's important to experiment, or you'll miss out on your revenue potential. Of course, when a competitor comes into the mix, you may have to adjust. It's very important to monitor things regularly, so you are not caught unawares. This post will reiterate a few things from a previous post of mine on pricing, and share some of our experiences with iOS price experimentation.

A few blogs around the 'net have been discussing pricing of apps in the iPhone AppStore. I just wanted to note a few as a follow-up, since I had covered similar ideas in my previous blog post, Finding the Right Price - Marketing Mobile Software – Part II, Price.

Price selection can be the most difficult and elusive part of marketing. How do you know if your selection is right? What happens if it is too low? What happens if it is too high? What if you need to change it? Is it possible to market to all types of customers—those who want cheap, those who will pay more, or those who won't buy if the price is too low? Sometimes pricing feels like a shot in the dark, but it really doesn't have to be that way. This post will explore different ways of pricing software applications, how to modify them if needed, and approaches for setting pricing tiers to ideally attract as many customers as possible.