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Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#81

Post by soccerdave »

ilugaslifg wrote: post #78
orasis wrote: post #47

Unless your app is a viral, monetization can't just be a strategy - it is the primary design criteria. I have a 5 ⭐️ app, 7 Second Meditation, that has fantastic retention numbers, but I didn't design it around monetization from day 1, so the LTV is too low to do paid user acquisition. So the app is doomed to putter along on organic installs. An app must nail both retention and monetization to succeed. (shameless plu…

Would you mind translating this into english? Even seeing the definition of LTV above, I still don't understand the story your comment is telling. What is "paid user acquisition"? How would a higher "lifetime value per user" enable you to do it? How is your app monetized to arrive at this LTV? What would it imply for you to have "designed it around monetization from day 1", what would be different? Why can't you chan…

If it costs $2 to acquire a user but your Lifetime Value (LTV) of a user is only $1.50, then you are just spending money you will never earn back.

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#82

Post by orasis »

exolymph wrote: post #67
orasis wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers on the App Store disagree with your first thesis of up front payment. Simply look through the top grossing apps and most of them are free to play games.

> and without compromising my integrity. From the comment you're responding to.

Ah, sorry. I got ya.

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#83

Post by neivin »

vbsteven wrote: post #11

A couple years ago I had a niche Android app that I could sell for 10EUR/USD. It made around 1500/month which was pretty decent for an app with no backend and almost no maintenance work. After one year a competitor showed up at less than half the price and the party was over. My strategy: find a niche app so you can charge a lot more

Icon themes are a great niche to get into. Making them is a lot of work, but nets a pretty penny, especially for a lone designer.

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#84

Post by pdimitar »

benologist wrote: post #71
ImSkeptical wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious - do you know how Amazon gets more than 0.2 cents per person minute of value from your app, or apps in general? If they don't, I can't see them sustaining this business model forever.

The Underground app is also a shopping app for amazon.com and they put a promotion covering your app when it opens. I don't know if it's profitable or not for them.

Do you have any promotional material for your app? I'd be interested to check it out. What does it do?

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#85

Post by ABCLAW »

qeternity wrote: post #76
ductionist wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Lifetime Value", the dollar value of a user over the entire time of that user's installation of your app.

Otherwise known as NPV...

Nit: CLTV/CLV/LTV calculations ignore acquisition costs, and are generally used to determine bounds for acquisition costs/investments - They are, however, essentially calculated as the NPV of the customer post-acquisition, which I believe was your point.

NPV calculations, used to determine the value of the entire pipeline, include them.

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#86

Post by orasis »

ilugaslifg wrote: post #78
orasis wrote: post #47

Unless your app is a viral, monetization can't just be a strategy - it is the primary design criteria. I have a 5 ⭐️ app, 7 Second Meditation, that has fantastic retention numbers, but I didn't design it around monetization from day 1, so the LTV is too low to do paid user acquisition. So the app is doomed to putter along on organic installs. An app must nail both retention and monetization to succeed. (shameless plu…

Would you mind translating this into english? Even seeing the definition of LTV above, I still don't understand the story your comment is telling. What is "paid user acquisition"? How would a higher "lifetime value per user" enable you to do it? How is your app monetized to arrive at this LTV? What would it imply for you to have "designed it around monetization from day 1", what would be different? Why can't you chan…

Someone downvoted you, but thanks for asking this question - it made me realize I was communicating poorly.

Paid user acquisition is spending money, usually on ads, to get people to install your app.

The app business is now a ruthless winner-takes-all market and the game is all about spending $3.00 to make $3.05.

When you see pervasive ads for Mobile Strike or Game of War it means that these games are doing a better job of monetization than anyone else so they can buy the users and dominate the top spots in the charts.

Anyway, to advertise for your app, you're competing with every other advertiser out there with products that earn at least a couple dollars per clicking user. If your app only earns $.15 over the lifetime of the person that clicked, you can't afford to take out ads.

As to "Why can't you change it now?" - I haven't figured out a design that would ever allow it to be a high LTV product. So what I do going forward is think very carefully about potential apps through the lens of whether or not they could possibly be high lifetime value. If not, I won't waste my time writing that app.

In closing it is a really really damn hard craft to master, but the multi-dimensional aspect of it keeps it fun.

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#87

Post by orasis »

ABCLAW wrote: post #85
qeternity wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otherwise known as NPV...

Nit: CLTV/CLV/LTV calculations ignore acquisition costs, and are generally used to determine bounds for acquisition costs/investments - They are, however, essentially calculated as the NPV of the customer post-acquisition, which I believe was your point. NPV calculations, used to determine the value of the entire pipeline, include them.

Most people that I know don't discount the time value of money on their LTV calculations so, in practice LTV != NPV. But yes, NPV would provide a more accurate calculation.

(Edit: to be clear on definitions, NPV is "Net Present Value")

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#88

Post by seanwilson »

simon_weber wrote: post #22

I sell productivity tools - Chrome Extensions and a SaaS - that solve my own problems in a niche. I've avoided ads: they wouldn't be worth it with such small install numbers. For business-focused products I usually do a free time-limited full-access trial + paid subscription. For consumer-focused products I usually do freemium (limited version for indefinite use + paid subscription to remove limits).

So you can make a living on Chrome Extensions? I haven't found much data on sales figures for paid extensions.

Also, can you change the paid subscription cost yet? It seems once you set it there isn't a good way to experiment with different subscription fees except creating multiple subscription types with different costs.

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#89

Post by thijser »

We started the monetization part of AppBrain for very similar reasons about 5 years ago. We chose to have a very predictable set of ads (only non-incentivized app install ads) that have a better user experience than regular interstitials. Especially at that time, there were quite some scammy ads out there and our business grew quickly. Now that Google Play has cleaned out most of the bad acting ad networks it is a challenge to attract new developers who recognize the benefit of a good user experience over the slightly lower eCPMs that may go with it. I wish you best of luck!

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#90

Post by Pica_soO »

I make a game, the idea to monetize at the moment of victory, aka the highscores at the end of a match. Players buy Confetti for 2 Cents and throw it when the camera rotates around each player detailing his archievments. The Targetplayer gets 1 Cent, we get the other one. There are various "Throwables" (roses, fireworks, glasses, tomatos, eggs, fish).
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