Monetization: How To Make Money From Your App

By Author: Susan Smith
Total Articles: 132
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Mobile apps are made for either learning, or earning. Knowing that there’s no such thing as free lunch, let us for the time being ignore the Samaritans who design and publish apps out of the sheer goodness of their hearts. Taking the case of common developers, the question plaguing them the most is how to cash the check that their wonderful app needs to write for them.

Even enterprises sometimes struggle to justify the cost of mobility, unless it is a direct business enabler like a mobile store for their wares or a paid mobile utility like an antivirus or a mail client.

There are many business models available for the app developers today. Some are traditional and well established, while others are new and evolving.

Traditional models

Make them pay upfront: The simplest monetization model is to have a paid app. Every download leads the bank balance of the user to decrease and than of the developer / publisher to increase. In its heyday, a hugely successful iOS app can make in excess of $100,000 a day, and that’s after Apple takes away its 30% stake. However, a paid ...
... app means the users expectation, and as a consequence, the development, testing, and support costs, are high. Another offshoot of paid apps are try-before-you-buy apps like Touchdown exchange client from NitroDesk. You download and use the app for 30 days, and if you are satisfied, pay $19.99 to keep using it with full features. Also, the payment may be one time, or a periodic subscription.

An important consideration for paid apps is the target user base. Android users are more frugal than their iOS counterparts. Similarly, a tablet user is more willing to pay than a phone user.

Freemium model (IAP): Another method is to give limited functionality / access for free, and charge for premium features through in-app-purchases (IAP). Once again, features in free vs. premium make the difference in success and failure.

Make the advertiser pay: If the app is highly popular, all sorts of ads and notifications can be used for making money off of it. Banner ads, video ads, social ads, and push notifications etc. are some simple ways of ad-based revenue. Also, you can merge freemium and ad-based models, and make the user pay to remove ads.

Make the user earn it: Another method is using incentivized installs through credit systems across multiple apps. This requires a credit system that the user finds engaging. Temple run, the hugely popular iOS and Android game, lets you install other apps for coins you have earned while protecting your behind from the giant monkey.

New Models

Keeping it real: Real world rewards are another monetization model evolving out of platforms like Kiip. Basically, for achieving something on your phone, you get a reward you can use in the real world.

Arcade style: Pay-per-view (PPV) model reinvented for mobile. You pay (either in dollars or some imaginary credit system) every time you use the app.

Use what you know: Social discovery of users and their data can be used to make money from an app. It sounds sneaky, but is perfectly legit (maybe).

In conclusion, developers have many ways to make money off their apps. They can choose one or more methods mentioned above. However, the applicability of a method depends on the app, the platform, and finally, the users.

The author is associated with a well known enterprise application development company company, mobile solutions development Dallas and mobile app companies in Delhi NCR company