I'm launching an app in a couple of weeks and I'm really worried about the revenue model. It's an app that acts to an client to an other service and they'll probably start charging for the API in the near future.
I felt like I had a few choices seeing as I'm foolishly doing this full time and need some kind of revenue:
1) Free + Ads
2) Free + Freemium for "pro-features"
3) One-time fee
4) Subscription fee
I have a distaste for ads so I really didn't want to go down that road.
I don't like freemium because looking at "pro features" and valuing them based on them alone it seldom seems worth it. Also keeping useful features away from non-paying customers seems lose-lose.
I could go with a one time fee but then I won't be able to support it over time and the API fee's will eat away any revenue, no matter how small, over time.
So I've decided to launch with a subscription yearly fee (through a in-app purchase). From all examples I've seen of changing revenue model to subscription model after you've launched it seems almost impossible without the mob getting out their pitchforks. It also seems more honest to have the subscription carry over than launching a separate new app that you have to buy for future OS versions.
Still, mentally users aren't really used to paying subscriptions for an app so it remains to be seen if its successful. Also since most people don't pay for this service itself already there's another mental barrier.
Actually if the app wasn't dependent on a service I'd rather see you'd own the app and subscribe to updates, it seems like a much better model since you never lose "ownership" even if you don't pay, but unfortunately app stores don't support that model.
I think my app is better than the competitors but will people choose a competitor because of the subscription model? It will be interesting to see.
I've a free API that allows people to build clients for mobile apps (some are free, some are one time fee, etc) and the costs of running this free API are starting to worry me.
I ran a free system and while it is small it easy but as soon as you get tens of thousands of users you are on the hook for all of the background costs while your userbase grows exponentially because they are so happy. Better to have 10 customers then 10,000 free users. I was never able to get free people to pay anything. I bragged about my free users and I felt self-important while taking away my ability to use my time more wisely.
I've noticed online services which probably cost a few cents per user to run seem to either charge $0 or something like $10/month which works out quite a lot. I wonder if there is a gap for charging say 3x actual costs which might be say $5/year or $10 for 5 years or some such?
I felt like I had a few choices seeing as I'm foolishly doing this full time and need some kind of revenue:
1) Free + Ads
2) Free + Freemium for "pro-features"
3) One-time fee
4) Subscription fee
I have a distaste for ads so I really didn't want to go down that road.
I don't like freemium because looking at "pro features" and valuing them based on them alone it seldom seems worth it. Also keeping useful features away from non-paying customers seems lose-lose.
I could go with a one time fee but then I won't be able to support it over time and the API fee's will eat away any revenue, no matter how small, over time.
So I've decided to launch with a subscription yearly fee (through a in-app purchase). From all examples I've seen of changing revenue model to subscription model after you've launched it seems almost impossible without the mob getting out their pitchforks. It also seems more honest to have the subscription carry over than launching a separate new app that you have to buy for future OS versions.
Still, mentally users aren't really used to paying subscriptions for an app so it remains to be seen if its successful. Also since most people don't pay for this service itself already there's another mental barrier.
Actually if the app wasn't dependent on a service I'd rather see you'd own the app and subscribe to updates, it seems like a much better model since you never lose "ownership" even if you don't pay, but unfortunately app stores don't support that model.
I think my app is better than the competitors but will people choose a competitor because of the subscription model? It will be interesting to see.