Sago Mini · B2C · preschool app studio
Charge one subscription price with no ads or in-app purchases so parents trust you
Guest calls safety and trust a big selling point; no numbers
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What they did
No in-app ads, no IAPs or gems: one subscription price, or parents can use the free experience. Positioned as high-quality interactive 'digital toys' in a safe, trusted environment, versus passive YouTube Kids-style content.
What happened
Safe, trusted environment described as a really big selling point for parents.
- Stage
- Scale (scaling)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How to Build a Great Kids App with Minimal Data — Brennan Clark, Sago Mini“We're not doing in-app ads, we're not doing a bunch of IAPs, gems, all this type of stuff. We have a single subscription price. Parents can lock that in or just enjoy the free- free experience.”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Sago Mini: Send players of your older apps to your main subscription appAbout 1M installs in a year; filled part of the gap left by lost ad channels
- Sago Mini: Add parent accounts so you can email parents about your other appsNo numbers; became key once there were several subscription apps
- Sago Mini: Send the kid's drawings to a parent app so parents see the valueGuest calls it a nice reminder of value; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Measure ads with Apple's anonymous data only and model lifetime value yourselfWorks because 80% of purchases happen in 2 days; still a slow manual process
- Sago Mini World: Advertise inside free kids games that match your age groupSurprisingly good on iOS; weak on Google Play, especially for the learning app
- Sago Mini School: Aim ads for the learning app at parents and ads for the play app at kidsShifting further toward parents for the learning app; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Track app usage with only a per-device ID: no IP, ad ID or account IDGets 90-95% of the picture; parent and kid devices can't be linked
- Sago Mini: Choose partners willing to build custom tools for your rulesPartner built a compliant custom SDK in about 3 weeks with ~20 people
- Sago Mini: Bring kids into the office every week to test apps and check what the data saysCaught a 'popular' feature that kids were really tapping to get back to the menu
- Sago Mini: Keep all text out of gameplay so only store and account screens need translatingApps travel well internationally with little localization work, guest says
- Sago Mini: Offer free branded printable activities to collect parents' emailsNo results shared
- Sago Mini: Make special web offer pages for deals with phone carriers and device makersNo results shared; web hasn't been a big success overall
- Sago Mini World: Add a character creator and more customization so older kids keep playingGuest calls it a major step; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Launch apps for younger and older kids so families move up through your brandNo results shared
- Sago Mini: Sell a monthly craft box that matches the app's themesNo results shared
- Sago Mini: Skip launching on Amazon because it costs as much work as iOS for far less returnLearning app still not on Kindle two years after launch
- Sago Mini: Try small YouTube brand ads aimed at parentsOnly tested, never scaled