App Masters · B2B · app marketing agency
Price utility apps at $5 a week, $20 a year, or $30 once
Unknownpricing
What they did
Across several of the host's utility apps, set plans to $5/week, $20/year and $30 lifetime, copying a prior guest's (Chris) finding that $29.99 is the best lifetime price. Results promised later.
“Chris's strategy about the $29.99 being the optimal lifetime price for his apps, I'm trying that out with a lot of our utility apps”
“So we have $5 a week, $20 a year, and $30 lifetime.”
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More from App Masters
All 4 App Masters tacticsMore from this episode
- Put the brand word you target first in the App Store keyword fieldReached #2-3 for 'Apple Wallet'; one app, anecdotal
- Run Apple Ads in every country except the US to find where buyers areFound the Netherlands: same keyword popularity as the US, difficulty 17 vs ~60
- Give Apple Ads max-conversion 5-10 top keywords, a high tap bid and a target install costAgency says it works across clients ($80K for one); 'Basic Plus' setup sometimes beats it
- Drop the $1.99 monthly plan because 90% buy the $10 yearly oneSales went down; the monthly price was the anchor that made $10/year look cheap
- Calm: Show only a yearly plan on the paywallMonthly plan was back within 2-3 weeks; observed from outside
- Add a hard paywall to an app that used to be freeWorked well for revenue, but brought many 1-star reviews from people who reinstalled
- Give ad-driven users a hard paywall and App Store searchers a closable oneFounder said it worked really well; no numbers
- Sign Panda: Give free lifetime access through the Indie App Santa promotionUsers emailed feature requests and said the icon made them download; no numbers
- App Masters: Test different app icons on a new utility app
- App Masters: Ask gender in onboarding and show one matching testimonial on the paywallIn use; an A/B test vs ratings was mentioned but the result wasn't stated
- Grow with Meta ads alone before adding any other channel$4M+ ARR for one client and ~$1M MRR for another, Meta only
- Value Study: Give existing users 3 months' notice before charging for a free app90-99% of existing users happy to pay; new users complained
- Value Study: Find UGC creators on Collabstr and work with micro-influencersDeveloper calls it a great success; one creator had a big impact; no numbers
- Switch from a paid app to free with purchases, then to subscriptionsMade more money at each step, per the friend; no numbers
- Show different prices depending on what people answer in onboardingHeard it works really well; app unnamed, no numbers