App Store pricing ideas

Free apps: The "lite" and "free" demos are a great idea. Anyone selling an app over a buck should do it, especially if you're building a game. Hello, anyone remember Doom? I'd also price to zero with a first effort from an unknown company. This is what we're going to do with superpixel's first app. It's a casual, silly toy, with a surprise inside. I don't think it's worth a lot of money, and it's more important to me to show other developers and designers that I know what the hell I'm talking about. Much like you might pay to post a resume, I'm willing to sink the cost of development if it becomes a calling card to woo partners in our efforts.

Other free apps should involve tech demos, hobbyist efforts, silly stuff that wouldn't get sold otherwise, or interfaces to web apps and services (like Facebook, Reddit, etc.) or extensions of desktop apps (but not always). Oh, and if you have ads in your app, you probably shouldn't charge for it as well. I want to avoid ads, but we'll see.

$.99 apps: Toys, simple 1-screen helper apps and basic tools. I think we're to a point where voice recording apps can all be priced at this point and compete on features. Stuff like snowglobes and other non-game fun items are easily sold at this pricepoint.

$1.99 apps: Casual games, more robust tools (but not full-featured tools), or extensions of web services that add significant value (I would pay $1.99 for the Zenbe to-do app, because it adds local caching of data and excellent sync services).

$2.99 and up to $9.99: This is the sweet spot! You're likely to make money here. But you have to deliver a bullet-list of features and/or repeat value (in terms of games that means lots of replay capabilities). Perfect example: Fastlane. There are a lot of tracks and cars to unlock, and several game modes to explore when you've beat all the tracks and unlocked the cars.

More than $9.99: Specialized, niche apps. I'm considering pricing our first paid application, possibly something to do with magic, above ten bucks. Why? For one thing, we'll be catering to a niche. For another, it's typical in the magic biz to price high to avoid people ruining the secret. And finally, we'll be splitting the money with a well-known magician and I want to make sure everyone is duly compensated. When you see how much value we're packing in the thing, I think it'll be worth it.

Ultimately I think people are dropping to $.99 because they want to zip to the top of the charts. It's a lot like the web boom during the late 90's, early part of this century -- lose money for mindspace. People are doing this because they either don't understand what "real" marketing is (hint: it ain't hoping Apple will feature your app) or they don't see the value in it. Is it worth a $10,000 ad campaign to promote your app? Well, if it costs more than $.99, yeah, it probably is... if you do it right!

With superpixel we're going to play the long game. When you see posts on a blog that make it to digg months after publication, you learn to trust the big cloud brain and realize that the right apps will find their audience. Just give it time. But think it through so you aren't waiting for the world to beat a path to your door -- that means start planning your marketing as you build your app.

Afterthought: Note that I'm taking this from a boostrap & indie dev POV, not someone who would be running a division at EA or even Omni. I recognize that there are myriad business decisions and design decisions and resource decisions that influence the price of an app. So this is my opinion based on what I think the "average" buyer would do.

Would you buy a whoopee cushion for $4.99?

It isn't rocket surgery, it's common sense

Oy. Very smart people still banging the drum over pricing on the store... So the deal is: people will pay for quality. They will pay what they perceive is a "fair" price for said quality. I've studied the VHS and BetaMax battle, Mac vs. PC, and others. The lesson?

People aren't smart when it comes to buying things.

Sure, some people are very smart. Some do the research, check the reviews, wait it out, etc. But unless you've been under a rock the past 3 months, the average US customer is lured by big and shiny, not small but practical. Unfortunately, this isn't where the common sense comes in.

The other thing is that you have to understand: retailers (and these people have been in the game longer than ANY of us) fret about price points on an hourly basis. The "secret sauce" of any retail operation is where it prices merchandise and how that merchandise is packaged/presented to the customer.

The point, and the common sense part: if your app LOOKS like it SHOULD cost more money, people will buy it at that price. That's why there are free apps on the store people aren't downloading. They look like shit -- why bother? That's also why apps like Koi Pond sold so well; apps that look great will find an audience.

This is only hard for developers to understand because it's a new world. Yeah, if you've done shareware you know a little about pricing and whatnot, but you still won't come close to the skills of retailers. If you only recently got into the software-for-money game AND you have zero design skills, you're doubly screwed.

So quit bitching about it and learn. I know a bit about design, marketing, pricing, etc. but I'm learning to program the iPhone. Believe me, if this pre-calc failboy can do it, you can learn retail strategies.

The magic is about to happen

Well, I hope so! Lately time has been tight. It's always tight, but the holidays, with kids, and Macworld looming... let's just say my Nike iPod doohickey is very lonely.

But I managed to get a cheap "coming soon" page up on superpixel.com, and I've set a website launch date of January 1. I won't have an app on the store by then, but I'll have enough to be ready for when it hits.

Speaking of hits, I found a couple of great posts today by a few really smart guys talking about iPhone design and how to make great apps. Gruber discusses what makes an iPhone app as good as what Apple, the "gold standard," comes up with. Hockenberry discusses his journey in making a Twitter app for the iPhone, and wind up teaching great design and interaction lessons along the way.

Meanwhile, all of this is a validation of what I've been preaching all along: apps need love. Apps should be magic. I love Gruber's rather obvious analogy of iPhone to 80's-era Macintosh. Innovative tools need love because they are engineered to push the boundaries, and in doing so they push new conventions and practices. Not to mention they are kinda hacked into existence. Just like the Apple II...

Anyway, it's too late to focus on math and logic, so I had to put into writing my superpixel slogan: "magic in every box"

What that means is that on top of great design, logical operation and lean code I want our apps to have a little magic inside. In practice, that means hidden features (and other goodies). There's a lot of great things that come out of putting magic in your applications (our virtual "box"), and in the coming months I'll talk about that. Just gotta get that first app out the door!