Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
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Re: Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
#2Excellent analysis and line of thinking. The tech community really needs to give up the idea that hard work should be given away for free. Trail periods are fine, but legitimate businesses need real cash flow, and very, very few can survive off advertising alone.
Re: Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
#3Great article. I particularly liked the points about filtering out undesirable and unprofitable customers. Some clients really are just wrong, and far more trouble than their business is worth.
Re: Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
#4It's like a reverse of the iShoot story that caused everyone to run out and make free lite versions of their apps several years ago. Different market (productivity Vs. game, early app store Vs. current app store) but it's still interesting.
Re: Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
#5Instapaper has little need for a free app because it's so unique; there are few paid alternatives, let alone free ones. If you're building something less extraordinary, offering a free app with an in-app upgrade path makes more sense.
The free-to-pro transition seems to work better with a single app using in app purchases (to remove ads and unlock features) than with two separate apps.
It's possible to structure the experience in a free app to make the upgrade more compelling too. Thermo and Astronut (both for iPhone) are two examples that handle it well in different ways: Astronut (game) presents an upgrade option when you reach the end of the first stage; Thermo (temperature widget) shows an ad at the bottom with a tempting X button -- when you tap that, you're prompted to upgrade.
Re: Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
#6Thoughtful approach on app pricing and customer selection.
The point that resonated with recent experiences was this one:
"How much effort do I really want to devote to satisfying people who are unable or extremely unlikely to pay for anything? (This is also a major reason why I have no plans to enter the Android market.)"
Re: Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
#7This post reminds me of a post by Jacques Mattheij about an experiment he did by doubling the price of his app:
http://jacquesmattheij.com/Double+your+price+(and+no,+Im+not...
These two articles definitely make a case for experimenting with the pricing based on your market and target audience to find the sweet spot.
Re: Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
#8I think Readitlater (and lately Readability) strips down the content much better than Instapaper. Instapaper always has a lot of weird extraneous stuff around the text. The others do not. +1 for them.
Re: Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
#9I'm one Android user who would definitely pay $5 for an official Instapaper app.
Re: Why Instapaper Free is taking an extended vacation
#10"Maybe you think I can only do this because Instapaper is already popular. But it built its popularity while charging a lot for an iPhone app from the start."
AND there was a free version out.
He's neglecting the "critical mass" factor.
The free version helped him sell the full version until it reached that "critical mass" that was required for the popularity of the full version to continue to drive sales of itself.
I've personally found that by just offering a paid version of an app from the beginning is quite frustrating. But once I put out a free limited version, sales took off. So, MAYBE I'll try losing some of my free versions to see what happens, but I think that free-to-paid actually works just as well.