A weather app · B2C · host's own app
Charge $40 a year when most rivals charge $20-25
~40% year-one retention; host now thinks a lower price would have done better
Mixedpricingpaid-social
What they did
Priced the annual subscription at $40/year versus $20-25 for most weather apps, reasoning that a higher price would make planned ad spend easier to pay back. Much of the year's traffic came from press, so price experiments were hard to read; host concludes early apps should price lower to build retentive cohorts.
What happened
Retention around 40% (60% churn), above median, but host believes conversion and retention would both have been much better at a lower price; guest notes total revenue might not have been higher.
- Stage
- early
- Effort
- One year at $40/year; some price experiments on press-driven traffic
“I think I actually made a mistake in my weather app. I was trying to kind of push the boundary a little bit and charge $40 a year for a weather app”
“last year, my thought was, "Well, I'm going to ramp up some ad spend, and so having the higher price point is going to make the ad spend easier to make work."”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Drop prices far lower in Brazil, where ads are very cheapFinally made ad spend in Brazil work; no numbers
- Put the paywall in onboarding, since most trials start on day oneOver 80% of trial starts happen the first day across RevenueCat apps
- Include credits in the subscription and let heavy users buy moreSpreading, e.g. 13% of photo/video apps; too few included credits drew angry reviews
- On Android, let people buy one feature or one piece of contentGoogle reports much better Android monetization with hybrid models; no numbers given
- MacroFactor: Build the app with influencers who already have a following in the nicheHad a built-in community to market to; audiences tap out fairly quickly