App Pricing Part 2
48:04 Share

What's up everybody? Just a quick note before we get into the episode here. We were about to drop this after editing. During the episode we discussed Marques Brownlee's Panels app and

And literally just before we were about to push this out live, he released a video in which he addresses a lot of the issues that we discuss during the episode here. And I will put a link in the show notes because I think it's very important that you listen to the episode, but then also watch the video so that you can see his responses to a lot of the things that we comment on that have taken place in communities online.

on the internet. So just want to put that in there. Let's get into the episode. What's up, folks? Welcome back. It is part two, and I suspect it'll be more popular with the audience than Joker part two. Oh, I know, controversial and timely, but there you go.

Yeah, we are back this week. Part two for the pricing. We said Boobie back. It's going to happen. We're going to talk numbers this week. Going to say up front here, we are not experts. We weren't experts last week. We're not experts this week. All right, so we're going to take it from there. How are you doing, Jeff? I'm doing just great. I'm ready to finish up the conversation that we started last week and...

hopefully answer all of my problems about charging money for apps. How to make you rich and popular. That is the subtitle of the episode. Yes, for sure. All right. So we already know that we have some differing opinions on this, which is great. That makes for good episodes. Jeff, you want to kick this off? I feel like you're going to take this in a good direction. Yeah. So last time we discussed what

kinds of business models you have for your apps, whether that's paid upfront, completely free app, paid with in-app purchase or subscription. And what we're talking about this week is once you've made that decision or made multiple of that decision, what is it that you're actually charging to somebody? And actually kind of how can that change depending on what business model that you chose? So what

If you are charging a one-time purchase, you know, it might be... It might make sense to charge a higher amount than something that you're charging over time. And so if you are...

building an app, what is it that you can charge to users that users are going to agree that that is the value that they're getting for your app? Okay. Yeah. So, you know, by that sort of the way that, that I I'm breaking that down in my head, right. Is, you know, certain apps, styles, types of apps and the functionality they, they provide, I feel have that kind of

There's a certain value that goes with that, that a user considers acceptable, you know. And I think, like I've said before, to me, right, there is that certain price where you're like, hey, you know, whatever, it's 99 cents, fantastic. And then maybe, you know, and this is just my opinion, folks, right? You know, like up to $299, let's say, not even going to think about it, right, as a one-off price, right?

Now, after that, what the app is drives that price a little bit. And we'll talk about some apps. And, you know, that's kind of my take on the one-off price. When I'm paying for an app, I don't mind paying higher prices for a one-off cost. On the flip side, I think there is what I would say is too much for a subscription, for example. Now, that...

It's a bit of a gray area. If you want, I'm happy to give numbers based on my opinion. If that's the route you want to go, you want me to go there? I kind of want to talk about how I think there is a different level at both ends of that, though, where I 100% agree that there are...

Cases where, yes, there are apps, and I think that you used the term last week, productivity apps, where you are using this as a way to produce something that is a professional level of quality type deal. That is how I think of it, yes. That's a better word. Sorry. I was going to say, I think that's a better definition. That breakdown of a professional app

Meaning there's a breakdown that feels like a professional app and you are using it in a professional capacity to do some kind of work, whatever that is for you. And I think that there is a case where those apps can charge more and it's seen as fairly reasonable. So I'm thinking apps like, for example, Pixelmator, like that is a very professional quality app.

photo editing app that you can run on your iPad. And it totally makes sense that this is a professional tool that you're going to charge up front. However, I think at a certain point, you get to professional tools that almost make more sense to charge subscription for just because they are going to be so costly that I don't really feel comfortable giving a

X amount to something that I'm not a hundred percent sure that I'm actually going to use. So the example I have in mind here is Apple's final cut pro on the Mac. You buy that upfront and it is $300 upfront on iPad. It's four 99 a month or something like that. And I think that there is a level of like, man, I,

I sure would love to use Final Cut Pro. I don't know that I'm ready to drop $300 on it all at once. Even if I'm willing to pay $300 total, I don't know that I'm willing to pay $300 in one lump sum. And so I think there is this sweet spot of pricing of where paid up front or one-time payment can work.

But at a certain level, it almost gets so expensive that I don't think that it can – I think that it makes sense to have at least the option to pay over time. Okay. So actually you have come up with I think a perfect example for me right there.

Because I have Final Cut Pro on the desktop. Yeah, I wouldn't be paying the subscription for the Final Cut Pro on the iPad. Not because I don't think... I'm sure it's as good as everyone says it is. Some folks will disagree. I respect that. But because it just feels wrong, in my case, to be paying that every month for an app that I might use...

Maybe even just once in the month, right? Especially since, okay, I do have alternatives. Let me be clear. But even if I didn't, I don't think I'd pay a monthly subscription for that. I would look at it and go, you know what? I feel like Apple should give me that for the iPad since I bought the desktop one. Does that make sense? Yeah.

I mean, you can definitely question that as a business model. Yeah, I almost see it exactly the opposite where it is. I don't know that I'm going to use this this often. So I'd rather have the ability to turn it on and off the fact that I'm paying it. And as opposed to, well, I'm out 300 bucks, so I might as well use it as much as I possibly can. Okay, I've got an example of that too.

First of all, let's be clear. Nobody is sponsoring us, unfortunately, to talk about their apps. Let me be clear. You're all more than welcome to. So we've got no preference here as far as likes, dislikes, or so on, other than our own opinions. But I tried the Canva Pro app. I used that. It's a subscription-based. I forget what it is per month.

I'm going to say it was reasonably pricey for what I'm going to use it for. But I tried it for one month because I wanted to see how good the features were, how much time it saved me from manually making graphics. Turned out during that month, I was like, you know what? I'm using it like I thought I was going to. So I canceled it. But I don't feel like I was wrong to try it. I just basically followed exactly the reasoning you just gave.

Right. Now, if I had have had to have paid 12 months up front, yeah, I totally wouldn't have done it. And so, yeah, I think that this is a question of where pricing and business model kind of

You have to decide them hand in hand. And, you know, we kind of started this episode saying that we were going to talk about pricing and not about business models. And then immediately went off the track and have started discussing business models again. But it is kind of the case that

they do very much have to rely on one another. That you can't say, oh, well, I'm going to have this business model. Now I'm going to lock down the price on either side. You kind of have to decide what is your business model and what is your price model.

Because you're like, oh, I need to charge $12 for this app. Well, $12 a year, $12 once, $12 a month. Those are, in fact, actually different prices. Right. And I do have...

And funny enough, as you were saying that, I was thinking there are some apps that they're like – essentially they work at about the equivalent of a dollar or less per month that I'm paying for the year. So that falls in my bucket of – GetBark.app. Yeah, Bark.app. GetBark.app. So I –

you know, when I break it down to a monthly, I'm not even thinking about it. It's so small, it doesn't even matter, right? So, you know, that's kind of where I'm coming from there. When it comes to a business, productivity, whatever you want to call it, again, something I'm using to hopefully get some return from, then it becomes a bit of a broad spectrum of, you know, how much am I going to use it? Do I think it's worth it? For me,

Not now, but I'm going to use this as an example because I believe I mentioned it last week. OmniFocus, right? It's a fantastic tool on every platform, but I only ever really used it on desktop and iPad because it was just too much real estate fit, I felt, on an iPhone screen for me, right? But I stopped...

using it not because it's terrible or anything but i just i didn't think it was worth the cost compared to essentially i can do the same thing with the reminders app from apple at this point and use like a you know a kanban style board in there right and and i found that i've been doing more of that

Hey, folks, if you like what you're hearing in this podcast and you want to help this podcast to continue going forward and having great guests and great conversations, I invite you to become a Patreon supporter. You can go to patreon.com forward slash compile swift, where you will get ad free versions of the podcast along with other content. Yeah. And I think that that's another aspect of like,

not only are you looking to value to the user and what they're getting out of it, but also you've got the entire market that you're competing against. Like what are other apps of yours charging? And yeah, the honest answer is if you're competing with Apple, then you really can't charge a whole lot. Right. If you are competing with another competitor, some other third party that is themselves charging more, then,

then you can probably also charge more. You can undercut them. You can do the same price as them. You can do more than them if you can justify why you are charging more than them. But yeah, your price has to be in line not only with the value that you're producing to the user, but also the

cost of alternatives and what, what other ways can people get this value? And I mean, I've seen that a lot with my most recent apps, the kind of app that we've, we've brought into this is, you know, Hey, I've got this other major competitor that's out there and they do the app quote unquote for free. Um,

Why would I get your app? And so I do have to spend time justifying like, why is my app better than this alternative? Why is my app worth the money that this other alternative is not charging? And kind of like,

why should users pay me as opposed to going and getting this free app? And, you know, I can sit there and say, until I'm blue in the face of like, Oh, I'm just a poor indie developer. But you know, that's, that's not really what people are paying money for. Like people are paying money because they are wanting some sort of value out of that app. And what is it that I can produce that they are willing to, uh,

pay for. So I'm going to jump in there and say just quickly, my take is if you're doing something and charging for it, doesn't even matter what the cost is, right? Let's just pick a number. Let's just say $2.99 a month. This is a subscription or $15, buy it outright. Let's just say those are two options you offer.

and someone else or a thousand other people are doing one for free, I think that you as the person that's charging for it, you shouldn't let it bother you that other people are doing it for free because they're not doing it the way you are or your take on it. So if you think you've done something that's worth $2.99 a month, $15 paid up front,

So be it. That's completely fine, right? And I think that's like we were saying last week. That's your choice. Go for it. Don't fall in the trap of other people have done it for free, so I should, or other people have done it for free, so I should lower the price, right? Never devalue yourself based on your comparison of you and someone else. Does that make sense? I agree, but at the same time, I want to say that

you do have to understand what that is.

for the market as a whole. Oh, absolutely. If there is a competitor out there that is for free and you are charging some amount, that's totally fine. But know that that is going to be a marketing headwind where you have to justify your cost to the user and make sure that you can. Like in a lot of cases, there's going to be some reason that you can use to justify this other app. My app's better. My app has, uh,

a better privacy policy, for example. I think that's the main thing that I'm talking about with my competitor, for example. It's like, you know, my app is not taking your data. My app is not presenting you with ads. My app is not doing X, Y, Z. Just know that if you are competing with somebody who is undercutting you in price, whether they're doing it completely for free, whether they're doing it for significantly cheaper, any of that sort of thing,

Know that you are going to have this marketing headwind of saying, why is your app worth this when another app is not worth this? Oh, yeah, I agree. I'm not saying that you shouldn't feel compelled to justify it to someone who's buying it.

I'm saying that you shouldn't feel compelled to have to justify the decision to yourself, right? Which I think is two different things. That depends on how much money you want to make. Well, you know, I think, okay, I mean, fair enough, right? But if you asked us all, we want to make as much as possible, right? But we also know going in, these days, whatever you charge is probably less than the actual value you should have.

Just like you said earlier, to even stand a chance of being competitive enough to get some kind of sales, right? Yep. Now, I do want to touch on something you mentioned there, though, because I want to take games out of the equation here, and I'll explain why. I have had games in the past. Because neither of us know anything about games. Oh, there's that, yeah. Yeah.

Download Endless Hurdles. Because I've been in a situation before where there was a game that I absolutely loved and played it, gosh, for years. Not going to name it. And so I paid a one-time fee to remove the ads. However, it did remove third-party ads. What it didn't do...

was stop the continuous bombardment of make this in-app purchase from the person that was selling the game and so that's why i want to exclude games because i think that games and we can talk about it if you really want to but they almost deserve an episode by themselves because i feel like game pricing i'll just say it i think is very predatory i think in a bad way yeah

I'm not going to get that far. That said, I do think that, yes, we have kind of said this entire time, you know, what are our business models that we've discussed? We've talked free, paid up front, and we've talked

uh one-time in-app purchase and subscription and yeah we've completely kind of glossed over consumable in-app purchase and i think we should continue to gloss over i do too and that is really where kind of games are happening um and saying like yeah we're you're buying gems or you're buying coins or you're buying whatever uh that yeah that is a business model that

is very much its own thing. And I do not think that that is something that either of us have the expertise to get into. No. However, I'm happy to give opinions on it. Listeners, if you want to hear an episode of me going on about that, let us know. Reach out. Right?

That's the Patreon only just pure rant episode. Yeah, if you want that. Hey, if you just want a rant episode, hey, I got one. I got one for you every time. So let's, okay, let's take it because I don't think we've quite hit the mark that I think we're both itching to hit. And I think the only way we're going to get that is to talk about the wallpaper app at this point. You want to go there now?

I mean, yeah, that was one of the big impetuses for this entire discussion is the MKBHD panels wallpaper app where they were charging a subscription and plenty of people had the problem with the idea of a subscription at all. However, there was also a second set of people who go, okay, subscription seems reasonable $60 a year subscription. Yeah.

pushing it a little bit. And I think that that is a totally reasonable stance to have and to say, you know, and I think that this does get into some of the same sorts of things that we've been saying is, you know, why should I pay $60 a year for wallpapers when there are a ton of ways to get really cool wallpapers completely for free? And so what did Marquez do in order to

kind of sell people on why are these wallpapers worth $60 a year? And in my mind, the answer is not enough, which is he put out this video. He's like, Hey, I've got these wallpapers. These are my favorite wallpapers. These are the wallpapers that you see in the backgrounds of all the studio and yada, yada, yada. And we're going to do more with the app.

And that was kind of what he said. It was like, this is just the beginning. We're going to do more. And I think that it's possible that in the future it does get to a point where it's worth $60 a year. But at this point, you're kind of just going based on his promise and they weren't really explaining what is it that is worth it.

And I think that that was kind of what he ran into is he is charging significantly more than the market and he's not doing enough to justify why he's charging significantly more than the market. I want to tell you about DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean is a hosting company that I use for a lot of my projects. And I'm going to tell you, rather than just the usual thing that you hear on adverts, I'm going to tell you exactly how I use it.

It is so simple to set up. You just log in and I can set up very quickly with a few clicks whatever kind of instance I need on a server with whatever OS or pre-installed apps. I'm going to give you a perfect example here.

It is so easy to set up Swift on the server side vapor and I did that recently and it was painless. You know, I went in there and I set it up and before you knew it, my Swift app, I was bouncing off the APIs that I had created on the server side and testing everything that I needed to be tested.

But you don't have to use it for projects just like that. You can really use it to host anything you want for any length of time because you're really only paying for the resources as you use them. You're not paying ahead. And they have 14 globally distributed data centers and 99.99% uptime. I'll put a link in the show notes, but you can go to peterwhedham.com forward slash

D-O-C-E-A-N. That's D-Ocean. And that'll give you some free credits to get started with. Okay, so I need to be completely honest with the audience here. Until about a month ago, I had no idea who this guy was. I know, I hear you all out there, right? But hey...

You know, I didn't. Why would I? I'm an old man. No. So I didn't. But I came across him on YouTube first, right? So let me be clear. And then, of course, when his name... That's where he is, yeah. Yeah, no, no, but what I meant was then when his name started coming up in various places where we developers hang out, that was what I was based on was what I had known him...

So my knowledge was based on what I had learned in that period of time on who he was. Okay? So I'm saying all of that because I could still be wrong in my evaluation here. Now, my take on it, first of all, I don't think there's a wallpaper app on the planet that's worth that amount of money. I can't envision any kind of features you could add to make it worth it. It's just a picture in the background.

It's as simple as that. Now, that said... Now you're getting into the entire question of what is it worth to charge for art, and I do not want to get there. Oh, no, no, no, no. You're not wrong, but I'm not going to go there because that's too subjective, right? What I was going to say was, though, how I think... Artists have to make money, too. Artists are just cousins of developers. Yeah.

Exactly. The, um, what I was against the wall against AI. Yeah. He's going to replace us all. So where I was going to go with this was to say how I think, so I don't know how he came up with the pricing, but how I think it works in this case. Right. And, and I want to be clear, I'm not criticizing him here in the, in the, you know, trying to put him down or anything like that, or say he's wrong. He can do whatever he wants, but I,

believe in this case, based on who he is and who, as I now learn, his following is and his influence is, I think all of that is why he thinks he can charge that amount of money per month, knowing there's a core, there's enough of a core audience that'll just pay it, right? I think that was his expectation, yes. Hold on, let me finish. Sorry.

And the reason I say that is, what I'm really saying is like so many things here, is you are making money off of your celebrity status. That's how I think he's able to charge that, and a certain percentage of people will pay it just because it's his. Just like whatever. I feel like I've got to give another example. I'm trying to think of one. Give me one second. I mean, there is definitely a...

of like, I mean, just think of like name brand clothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can charge way more for a t-shirt with the word Supreme printed over the front of it than you can for a regular t-shirt. And I, I a hundred percent agree that that is the case there. I do think that in this case with Marquez specifically, like the wallpapers don't scream Marquez Brownlee. And so if you're going to sell on your celebrity status, you need to actually have that celebrity status. Yeah.

Well, what I mean by that is, I'm not saying his intention was they're going to buy this just because it's me. I don't mean that that was his main intention. I'm just saying I think that's how you can charge over the reasonable odds for the value of something because it's really saying...

You know, this person, it belongs to this person. Yeah, no, and I agree. And I do think that that would have been part of the argument that he would have made for this. And I honestly, like, it was part of the argument that he did make for it, which is to say, hey, these are the wallpapers that I, Marques Brownlee, use. And...

kind of like trying to play on like you've seen these in the backgrounds of my videos and they look great and like if you are using these you can be as stylish as i am well known to be but then why not sell it as an image and buy that image doesn't need an app to be a wallpaper yeah i agree i think that that's that's what it came down to yeah i mean he did not

justify the price that it was. And I think that to say, no, I agree that that is part of the argument is to say like, yes, this is, you are buying in some sense, the brand Marques Brownlee, but the app did not really scream that it seemed like a fairly generic app at the market as it exists for other wallpapers is not at that price. And again,

He promised that part of it was based on additional features and he has not clarified what those additional features are yet. And so I think that those three things together are kind of why that $60 might be justifiable in some sense at some point, but they aren't yet. And I think that that was why he saw that backlash is, hey, you need more of the branding, you need more of the features, and honestly, you need to meet the market where they're at.

And that wasn't something that he managed to accomplish. And so I think that was why you saw the backlash that you did. But the one thing that I want to add kind of here is that one of the things that you won't see being part of the justification for why he needs to charge what he needs to charge is, well, it cost me this much to develop the app and it cost me this much to get the art that goes in the app.

When deciding on the price of something that you give to users, you have to put it in the terms of the value that they're getting, not the terms of the cost to you. Users and really anybody that's paying anything for anything don't really care what it costs you to make it. What you need to do is say, well, the cost that I made result in this value to you.

I paid for the artist. They gave me the art. Now you are getting this art for this money. Not, I paid the artist, whatever, so therefore you owe me whatever. You need to say, this is the value to you, not this is the cost to me, and justify your price based on that. So I'm going to sort of, I don't want to say defend him. I'm going to take his side.

A little bit. I'm not sitting here and taking it. No, by that, what I mean is I'm not proclaiming that I'm speaking for him in some way. But if it was me and I was in that situation, as the creator, I would say, and I've not read everything about this, but as the creator, I would say, okay, don't buy it then. If someone doesn't like something about it, don't pay for it.

Now, on the flip side, me as the consumer, if someone says, and there'll be extra stuff in the future, but I'm not telling you what it is yet, because either they don't know or whatever reason, I personally would look at it and go, okay, well, you know what? I won't buy it yet. I'll wait and see.

I will wait until I feel you've done enough to make it worth $60 a month, $50 a month, $10 a month, whatever it is. When you have reached what I consider to be that acceptable line, I'll go buy it. I think it's wrong for me to put a review in now or slam you for it because...

Like we said last week, if I choose to buy it, that's on me, right? You shouldn't slam someone saying, I don't think that's worth $60 and not pay the $60. Let me rephrase this. Hang on. Let me rephrase this a bit better. I can't think of a way to rephrase it. Go with it. I can jump in. Yeah. No, I agree. I think that there is an extent to which, yeah, there is...

a reasonable response and an unreasonable response. And to say, yeah, no, even, and I would say you can leave a review and say, I don't think this is worth it. And part of the delicious irony of this whole thing has been, you know, Marquez did like launch this in a video where he talks about the iPhone 16 and he's saying, you know, don't buy the iPhone 16 for Apple intelligence because we haven't really seen what Apple intelligence is yet. And,

And then pitching an app that he's saying, Hey, uh,

buy this because of the future promise that we have here on this app. And so I think it is totally reasonable to take the tack that he did and say, I'm not buying this because it is not worth the price point that it is yet. But what is not okay is people like taking personal attacks or being super mean about it, or, you know, like some of the vitriol that we have seen about it in response and

you know, like, oh, Marquez is a terrible person because, and I don't, obviously way harsher words than that. Yeah. You know, Marquez is a bad person because he's charging this money. No, I think he's, you know, what I'm trying to say is he's made a mistake. I think he has, you

you know, overestimated the amount to which he can charge for something like this. Oh, for sure. I'm not saying that like, you know, he's an idiot. He's a moron. You know, he doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know how to run a business. Like, and I'm certainly not going to say anything about him as a person. Like, I think that that is beyond the pale. And yeah, you can totally go out there and say, I don't think this is worth it. I'm not going to, I don't think this is worth it. And you can even publicly say, I don't think this is worth it. Heck, what are we doing right now? We're publicly saying, I don't think this is worth it.

uh but yeah no that doesn't justify personal attacks no that so let me let me jump on that because i am very opinionated on that kind of thing i don't mean opinions who knew um nothing should ever well no let me rephrase there should never be personal attack for any product brand whatever you want to call it period simple as that

We have seen other things very recently. I'm not going to touch on, but where some well-known software attack its users and then proclaim that the person that did it, not doing it on their say-so, but in reality, all this time, they've been happy for this person to speak the rest of the time, right? You know, personal attacks are,

are never acceptable in either direction, period. Simple as that, in my opinion. Yes, it's idealistic, but hey, that's just the way it is. What if it was Apple that brought out this super amazing wallpaper app and charged you $60?

I mean, Apple charges plenty of things that are not necessarily worth it for the price that they charge. I mean, but that's exactly my point. Yeah. No, I'm saying that. Yeah. Just, just look at iCloud pricing. Like, um, I, I think that that is additionally a case where, um, you know, are they able to justify, uh,

uh, the price that they're charging. And I think in, in Apple's case, the answer is to how do they justify the price they're charging is like, you don't have any other options. And so they get away with it in a sense that way. Like what other, uh, automated backup system for your iPhone are you going to buy? You're not going to buy one. Um, I think you see that with, uh,

streaming services. You know, I want this content. Well, if you want this content, you're going to pay the price that we are charging for this content. You don't really have an alternative. If you can be in that market for you as an app developer, great. Like that's a great market to be in. I think the only way for any developer that would be listening to our show to do that would be, you know, getting into some kind of recruitment,

required standard you know oh you have to have all right here it is the one thing that i cannot do without every day and that is my coffee anyone that knows me or anyone that's listened to it in my podcast or anything else knows that i absolutely cannot operate without my coffee and i love good coffee so here's the deal i'm going to give you one free bag of coffee by going to peterwhitam.com forward slash coffee and

There is a wonderful company out there that follows the fair trade practices, helps out a lot of independent roasters of all sizes, and the operation is simple. What you do is, you're going to go to peterwhitam.com forward slash coffee, you sign up there, you get a free bag of coffee sent to you, yes, in return. They say thank you to me by giving me some coffee, but that's not the reason I'm doing this. The reason I'm doing this is because I have found...

So many good coffees that I just would never have come across, heard about, or experienced without this service. Trade Coffee is just fantastic. You know, there are plenty of places out there. We all know them that supply coffee, good coffee.

You can go to the store, get the coffee, but there is nothing better than discovering new independent roasters and supporting them, discovering new flavors of coffee, new grinds for you can set it up. It's very smart. You tell it the kind of coffee you like. And over time, it gets better and better as it trains in on your selections and your choices and gives you exactly the coffee you're looking for and recommending new ones that will be very similar to

Every time I get a new packet of coffee, I go through and afterwards I try the coffee. I go through the service and I say, look, I loved this coffee. I thought this coffee was okay. Or I say, look, this was really not for me. And every time I do that, it makes the service a little more accurate on the next selection for me.

So again, just go to peterwhitam.com forward slash coffee. Get your free bag of coffee today. If you're a coffee lover, you're going to really appreciate this service. I have been using it for years at this point and thoroughly recommend it. You talk about people attacking their users. Being the required standard for security software, which is how you get everybody using CrowdStrike. Yeah.

It's no longer a timely argument, but hey. Well, it is if you go back in time. Or you wait. Maybe it's ahead of its time for the next one. For the next one, yeah. You know, yeah. If you are able to kind of be a requirement, then yeah, you can charge whatever price you want to. I don't think that's a reasonable... I don't think that that's a state that most of our listeners are going to ever be in. No. No.

But then we're also, I feel like that's very close to sort of saying almost like the government model. Like you say, it's like, hey, what are you going to do? You know, we're going to massively overcharge you for something because this is the one you're all using, like you say. You know, and I, yeah, I have strong opinions about that too. But like you say, that's not something...

that applies to our audience hey if it does our audience is um way different than i ever predicted if it does have you heard about our patreon yeah why have you why are you not sponsoring us we'll say nice things if you sponsor us folks okay wait i'm gonna edit that out that's not true i will never say nice things just because you pay me i'm gonna shut up now

So yeah, I think that the answer of like how to find the right price to be charging is really just to kind of test out

various prices and see where you go. Can you charge less and it turns out that you actually are making more revenue? Can you charge more and find out that you're making more revenue, that price is a little inelastic in your case? Just kind of try different prices and depending on what business model you've chosen, there are less or more freedom that you have to do this kind of thing. You can with

subscriptions, you've got like offer codes, first time offers, additional promos, that kind of thing. With in-app purchases, you really kind of can just change the price and see if the number goes up and down. I believe that's also true with paid upfront where you really just kind of set your price. If you...

really have a kind of steady set of free downloads, you can kind of do this with, oh, I'm going to charge this price in this locale and this price in this locale and see if one of them does better. That's an option. You know, like, oh, I've got

approximately equivalent numbers of downloads in America and in Germany, for example, just to pick a relatively first world country. And, you know, like I'm going to charge a dollar more, you know, a Euro more in Germany and see if that price is better and kind of use it that way. So there's a couple different options for how you can test your price. But really the answer comes down to,

test your price and find out if I change this one way or another, does my total revenue go up or down and use that number to kind of decide where your best price is. If I lower my price, do I actually make less money because I'm making less money per purchase or do I make more money because more purchases are happening?

Vice versa, if I raise the price, do I make less money because fewer people buy my app overall? Or do I make more money because the same number of people are buying it and they're buying it for more? So I think there's a matter of in both directions, you could see both less or more. And so you really just kind of have to try different options and see, does it affect the amount of revenue that I'm making in either direction? And also be consistent with

with your testing, right? So by that, I mean... I wouldn't say be consistent. I would say be scientific about it. Make sure that you are logging and tracking and paying attention to the values that you have. Don't just set the value and kind of feel it based on vibes. Write down the numbers that you're making per revenue, when you changed your price, and what your new average run rate is, for example.

All right. And this is where you will think I should have let him finish that statement. So I was going to say, be consistent in the sense of whatever you do. Let's say you decide to raise the price and you're like, I'm going to raise the price for one month. OK, then everything else you do related to that has to be one month as well for the data to be meaningful. So lower it for a month. Right. You know, if you raise it.

and you find in the first week massive increase right and then you're like well what if i lower it well then you can only you should lower it for one week it's the only you've got to have comparative math to really understand right you can't just go with well that one worked really quickly went up that's got to be the answer you've got to have a level playing field for the tests right i don't necessarily agree but i'm not going to jump in enough to fight it

You know what I mean, right? If you're going to compare one month's figures...

You've got to run it for one month. If you're comparing to a total month rather than an average over that time, then yes. But I feel like you can do a one-month price up test, realize that, oh, it had some major impact. And then you're like, oh, I'm going to do a one-month lower the price impact. You do that and your average run rate plummets, then you probably want to go, never mind, let's back that up real fast. I mean, if the answers present themselves quickly in a very conclusive way...

Yeah. Yeah. You don't need to run the rest of the test. You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't need to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that was where I disagreed was like, okay, hold on. Like, I don't know that I necessarily say you have to do that. Uh, one thing that you did remind me of, and this kind of falls into both be consistent and be, uh,

scientific about it is make sure that that is the only variable you are changing as much as possible and make sure that you're not doing like oh I'm raising my price and I'm doing this big marketing push or I'm raising my price and I've shipped a brand new version and you go like oh well

Clearly the higher price made me all that much more money. Well, no, it was probably your big marketing pusher, your new version. And it wasn't the other thing. Just like make sure that you can kind of control your variables just like you would with any scientific process. Oh, absolutely. I agree. Yeah. You know, I have seen endless cases where people, you know, just like you say with coding, right? Yeah.

don't you know you're trying to fix a bug don't don't change 10 things and then it works yeah because you don't know which one was it right yes it could be frustratingly slow but it's the only way you're going to conclusively prove the results right yeah oh sorry let me let me rephrase that it's the only way you're going to have data that is conclusive in one direction or another

Right, Jeff. So I think we have in this two part series here, we have covered a lot of ground and we have given advice and thoughts and ways to get started and evaluate things. So I think we should wrap it there really, at least for now until next

Someone calls us out and then we'll come back and tell them why they're wrong. Right. So we didn't give an exact answer to what it is that you should charge for your app, because I don't think that there is a single answer that we can give to every app should charge this amount. I think we've given people the tools that they can use to figure out what the ideal price is for their specific circumstances and their specific apps and really the tools to

Continue to learn that because I think for every app, you're never going to have that one right answer. Everything is...

the circumstances that you're in and those circumstances can change. And so what is the price for your app? You're going to have to learn that yourself. Yeah. And I was going to say, you know, I think that that's throughout this whole thing that that's been an underlying tone is, you know, you as the creator, you, you have to decide for yourself what you think it's worth, whatever you decide, you got to go with, with that. Right.

Whether you feel you need to justify it or not, that's your choice. But only you can decide what makes you comfortable. And yeah, let's leave it there. Now, that said, folks, you want to continue this conversation, hey, jump over to our Discord where we talk about this kind of stuff all the time, right? There's a link in the show notes. Jump in the Discord, get involved. Share your thoughts. You know, Jeff, where can they find you, buddy?

You can find me, as always, at CocoType.com and CocoType on all the social things. And you can find me, CompileSwift, on all the social things and CompileSwift.com. That's it, folks. We'll see you in the next episode.