macOS iPhone Developers - What do you plan to charge?

[Buschmaster]

Assuming you've got some applications at least thought out, what do you plan on charging for the applications you're developing.

I'll add a poll so people can be more secretive about what they plan on charging.

 

[psingh01]

$999/yr subscription. Support includes one answered email per month

 

[Santa Rosa]

Well according to Steve developers are mainly going to be giving them away for free, so its going to be interesting to see how it turns out.

 

[robbieduncan]

If I had the time to do it I'd be charging around $5. I figure that there are at least 10 million devices out there to target (that's almost certainly on the very low side). If you can sell to 1 in 10 people then that's $5 million gross. Apple get their 30%, but the developer still gets over $3 million pre-tax!

 

[Sbrocket]

If I had the time to do it I'd be charging around $5. I figure that there are at least 10 million devices out there to target (that's almost certainly on the very low side). If you can sell to 1 in 10 people then that's $5 million gross. Apple get their 30%, but the developer still gets over $3 million pre-tax!

Heh, I think 1 in 10 is a bit optimistic, no?

I'm balancing the decision to offer my app for free or for a minimal fee ($1-$5) just to recoup some of the time spent developing it. What I'll probably do is release two versions, one for free and one with advanced stuff for like $2.99 or something. I dunno. If people will buy it, I will sell it.

 

[robbieduncan]

Heh, I think 1 in 10 is a bit optimistic, no?

Depends on the app. But I also think the 10 million devices is massively un-optimistic. Apple should have sold at least 3-4 million iPhones by now. I'd imagine they have shifted at least 10-15 million iPod Touches. So we're now at closer to 1 in 20 (especially by the time the store is actually live).

 

[Sbrocket]

Well yeah, the device estimates you quoted sound about right, I'm just thinking 1 in 10 or even 1 in 20 adoption rates are kinda overly optimistic. I mean, you have to factor in those people that actually use the AppStore out of the number of total devices, how many potential customers you target, how much competition you have for your specific solution, etc etc. Sorry, I'm too much of a realistic/pessimist.

 

[Santa Rosa]

Heh, I think 1 in 10 is a bit optimistic, no?

I'm balancing the decision to offer my app for free or for a minimal fee ($1-$5) just to recoup some of the time spent developing it. What I'll probably do is release two versions, one for free and one with advanced stuff for like $2.99 or something. I dunno. If people will buy it, I will sell it.

I feel if you offer the App at to high a cost you will probably make less money than offering it at a lower price as more people will be likely to buy. Thats my feeling on the whole situation anyway. Cant wait to install my first native application!!!

 

[robbieduncan]

Well yeah, the device estimates you quoted sound about right, I'm just thinking 1 in 10 or even 1 in 20 adoption rates are kinda overly optimistic. I mean, you have to factor in those people that actually use the AppStore out of the number of total devices, how many potential customers you target, how much competition you have for your specific solution, etc etc. Sorry, I'm too much of a realistic/pessimist.

All true. But for $5 as a consumer I'd not be expecting too much. Definitely the sort of app a single developer could do in a few months. Even hitting 1 in 100 and making >$300k sounds pretty impressive. And as Apple ramp the platform over the next couple of years that's likely to grow.

I'd be really surprised if Apple don't manage to sell a total of at least 50 million iPhone/iPod Touch devices by this time next year...

 

[Sbrocket]

I feel if you offer the App at to high a cost you will probably make less money than offering it at a lower price as more people will be likely to buy. Thats my feeling on the whole situation anyway. Cant wait to install my first native application!!!

Well obviously, that's why I though a $3 would be a good target since its near that impulse buy range where people will just buy it without worrying about the costs. The sweet spot is to stay in that impulse buy range while still getting the price as high as you can, make your app's page enticing enough, and maybe pull them in with a Basic/Pro app structure.

And robbieduncan, that's all true too. The project I'm working on right now is just myself, and its really nothing spectacular in and of itself, but I think it has a buy wide potential user base with some advantages over other competing apps. I mean, there's probably gonna be tons of Converter-type apps on the store at launch, but that's really all I can handle as a full-time student and single developer. I've never marketed or sold apps before, so I have no basis to gauge if people would expect such as thing to be free or if they would accept a minimal price, so it'll be interesting to say the least. I do think my TI-89 style unit calculator is something most other apps won't have, but if nothing comes out of it then it was at least what it was initially meant to be - a project to learn Cocoa.

/tangent

 

[psingh01]

More seriously....


10M iPhone owners
50k decide to buy your app (only 0.5%)
$3.00 ea = $150k
That's $105k after Apple
Maybe $70k after Uncle Sam

 

[Sbrocket]

Yeah, the numbers look good any way you slice it for minimally-priced apps especially since I'm sure a lot of stuff is going to be coming from individual developers.

Not to mention...Apple's profits off of this are gonna be pretty hefty even after operation costs and such. Take that money from sales and invest it in stock once it gets to a nice bargain price from this developing "recession", eh?

 

[cruzrojas]

I like the poll results. If you add the percentages together they add up over a 100%

Probably because of the multiple choice option, but the percentage should be over the number of votes not over the number of people who have voted. oh well.

 

[Buschmaster]

Anywhere from $1-$6 seems to be the sweet spot.

Hopefully many users are willing to pay a couple bucks for these very useful apps. I will be!

 

[Saliwa]

Wow that's cheap, but you're right the volume can be insane.

 

[kainjow]

From experience, a low price isn't always a good thing. Once you set a low price, it's really hard to increase it and customers will get angry. However if you start off higher, people will think your app might be more valued compared to a low price, and you can always lower it, making your customers happy.

 

[Buschmaster]

Wow that's cheap, but you're right the volume can be insane.

It depends. Sure $1 to $6 is very cheap for a computer program. But if many people release their apps for free (Which as a developer I'm not so sure I hope for ) then it will be harder to sell apps at any price...

From experience, a low price isn't always a good thing. Once you set a low price, it's really hard to increase it and customers will get angry. However if you start off higher, people will think your app might be more valued compared to a low price, and you can always lower it, making your customers happy.

True, yes. But my philosophy will likely be get the app in as many pockets as I can, word of mouth will spread quickly that way, I hope. There are advantages to pricing your app either way.

We know that there were 4 million iPhone's sold as of January, correct? Nothing since then, but since that was about half a year and it's about half a year between that announcement and the SDK release we can figure there will be AT LEAST 6 million iPhone's by the end of June. I think the number will be closer to the 10 million, myself. With more markets and the price drop I bet they're selling even more rapidly than before.

As far as the iPod Touch, well, I don't think we've even seen sales figures on it. But it has to be even more sold than the iPhone. Just judging by what I've seen I've seen more iPod Touch owners than iPhone owners. I would estimate about 10 million again playing it conservatively. So if we take those numbers we have 16 million possible buyers.

I'll make a spreadsheet that will calculate your possible sales totals a few different ways.

 

[Buschmaster]

Can't upload XLS. But it's easy to make on for yourself, so I won't even bother sticking it anywhere

 

[robbieduncan]

Can't upload XLS. But it's easy to make on for yourself, so I won't even bother sticking it anywhere

If you really want to upload it the just zip it first...

 

[CyberGeek]

Wow, I was worried about my sale volume estimate being overly optimistic, but I have the most pessimistic estimate here. I figured one in ten iPhone/iPod touch owners would see any given app in the store (a number of people won't ever use the store, and most won't check the store on a regular basis), and then out of that one in ten, one percent actually go on to buy the app (which is typical in the shareware industry (yes, I know this isn't the shareware industry, but the number seemed fair)), which results in selling the app to 0.1% of the iPhone/iPod touch market.

Going off of that estimate, a typical app would probably sell to 16,000 people given the 16,000,000 device estimate. At $4.99 a copy (which is what I'm planning to sell a game at), that results in $55,888 after Apple takes its cut. If you release a game or an app once every six months that sells that much, you can live comfortably with iPhone development as your only source of income.

So, yeah, even with my pessimistic estimate, things look pretty good for iPhone developers ^_^.

 

[kainjow]

These X million figures are worldwide, aren't they? And I think the App Store is going to be US initially. So that brings the numbers way down.

You don't get referrals for your software because it's cheap, you get them because your software works. If it doesn't work, it doesn't matter the cost - people won't buy it. If it does work, and it's unique, and it's intuitive, people will buy it.

Selling software isn't a simple thing to do. You need to setup customer support. The greater the number of users, the greater the amount of bug reports and crashes, and the greater the chance you'll have no idea initially how to fix them .

It's fun and challenging, yet stressful. Don't expect it to be easy.

 

[CyberGeek]

These X million figures are worldwide, aren't they? And I think the App Store is going to be US initially. So that brings the numbers way down.

I just reviewed the event video, Steve made no mention of the App Store being US only to start. In fact, he took about five different opportunities to stress "every single iPhone user." The developer program is US only initially, but it looks like the App Store will launch internationally.

Selling software isn't a simple thing to do. You need to setup customer support. The greater the number of users, the greater the amount of bug reports and crashes, and the greater the chance you'll have no idea initially how to fix them .

It's fun and challenging, yet stressful. Don't expect it to be easy.

Quite so. That said, iPhone apps will tend to be simpler than their desktop counterparts, which should reduce the amount of support you'll need to provide (unless you write really bad code. Try to avoid writing really bad code.) Still, though, it would be very bad to charge for apps without being willing to commit the time necessary to properly support it.

 

[psingh01]

You really have to figure out the market for it. Obviously enterprise level apps will not be $3-6. They will much higher. But say a Tetris like game (i.e. casual games). I would not expect people to pay $49.99 for it. I think $5-10 would be acceptable provided the game is unique and of a high quality.

Now if others start releasing similar style software for much cheaper or even free....then you have to charge less for your app. Would you buy $50 Tetris or $5 Tetris? You just has to find the sweet spot for your apps.

I would certainly develop freeware in addition to payware. It depends on how much work goes into it and what is already available in the market. Some work would need to go into building a reputation/brand. If you are known for developing high quality/interesting software then maybe people will be more willing to pay extra for something new.

 

[yayaba]

A couple of questions to ponder:

1) Will Apple allow people to release freeware with donation options? I'm not sure if people will even pay for the app I'm making but I'd like to offer an option to donate. Only thing is it circumvents Apple's 30% take so I'm not sure if they'll be ok with it.

2) How will Apple filter the apps? By that, I mean will they allow there to be 10 Sports score apps, 20 Tetris clones, etc? Or will they eventually clamp down on the number of clones out there so the App store doesn't fill up.

Out of 10,000,000 users, I only expect maybe 1 to 2 million to even look at the app store. Out of that 1.5 million average, I'd say maybe your app has a 1-10% chance of being sold to them. It's not a crazy amount but it's a decent amount of money.

 

[psingh01]

A couple of questions to ponder:

1) Will Apple allow people to release freeware with donation options? I'm not sure if people will even pay for the app I'm making but I'd like to offer an option to donate. Only thing is it circumvents Apple's 30% take so I'm not sure if they'll be ok with it.

2) How will Apple filter the apps? By that, I mean will they allow there to be 10 Sports score apps, 20 Tetris clones, etc? Or will they eventually clamp down on the number of clones out there so the App store doesn't fill up.

Out of 10,000,000 users, I only expect maybe 1 to 2 million to even look at the app store. Out of that 1.5 million average, I'd say maybe your app has a 1-10% chance of being sold to them. It's not a crazy amount but it's a decent amount of money.

For the donation, I would assume that you can put an "about page" for the app with a link to your website. On the website there could be a donation button. I don't think that Apple could/would stop you there. I suppose if there ever were a direct donation option on the App Store then Apple would still take it's 30% cut.

I don't know about the filtering. One would hope that no filtering is done but who knows about that when it comes to Apple.