I am going to publish my first app on google play store. Currently my app is completely free but later on I want to add some in app purchases ( but users should still be able to download it for free).Now how should I set the pricing now - free or paid ??
You can publish your application for free. You can add in-app purchases with IAP.
Best practices:
Make your app available as a free download with limited features or full features for a limited time. Then use an in-app purchase to
unlock the full, unlimited app.
Offer additional features or content items through in-app purchases, such as new levels, special playing pieces, or other
features in games.
Use subscriptions where your app provides regularly updated or time-based content.
Related
I am developing an Android app with two modes
Trial - free with limited functionality. The user has no time limit here. They can continue to use the app for forever but will not have access to full functionality.
Paid - full functionality. The user can make a one time payment to gain full functionality.
I have seen some posts indicating that you could publish two different apps to the Play store, but I would prefer to publish one app and use an internal flag to limit functionality when in Trial mode.
What is the best way to do this on Play Console? Should I set the App pricing as free and then add an In-app product for the paid version? Then from my app I can have a button that makes the request for the purchase?
The Play store indicates that once an app is published as free then it cannot be changed to paid? Is there some way to indicate paid app that has trial with limited functionality?
I don't want to use Subscription since the payment is one-time to get the full App.
Are there other good options to follow?
Using the Google Play Billing Library is the Google recommended way to do this (integrates with GPay nicely), otherwise you can use other payment processors and setup a server configuration to verify users purchases.
Using only an internal flag is not recommended as if users ever clear app data/uninstall their purchase is lost.
Do I have to integrate In app purchase before publishing my app or can I do it after?
I want to publish a app on Google play store and make it free to download. And, if it gets some traction, I want to integrate In App Purchases.
I know that if I make it free for download it can't be reversed, but what about In App Purchases, can they be added later ?
While, as you already noticed, you cannot turn free app into paid once released, yet you still can add paid features to already released of any type (free or paid) using in-app purchases mechanism. You can do these features at any time.
I am developing an application for iOS and Android and this app will be free on the store, but to use all features of the app, the user will need to pay a licence every month/year and if he doesn't pay it, he will have only a limited access to the app, with just few features. Moreover, the first month after he registers, he will have full access.
To pay the licence, it'll can be done in the app or on the website.
For that, do I need to develop a function to check on each connection my database to see if the user has paid, or is there already something done. I have look for "in app purchasing" but it seems that it works only for app where we pay once to have full features, and not every month.
Thank you :)
Regards,
There is a system in in-app-purchase for this, just check the url: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202023 and "Auto-renewing subscriptions" tab
you can go for in app purchase / in app billing
iOS,
In-App Purchase lets you sell a variety of items directly within your free or paid app, including premium content, virtual goods, and subscriptions. And just like apps you sell on the App Store, you receive 70% of the purchase price.
https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/
Android
Use In-app Billing to sell digital goods, including one-time items and recurring subscriptions.
Supported for any app published on Google Play. You only need a Google Play Developer Console account and a Google payments merchant account.
Checkout processing is automatically handled by Google Play, with the same look-and-feel as for app purchases.
http://developer.android.com/google/play/billing/billing_overview.html
I was unable to find clear reply on Google's help.
App is Free to use. It's absolutely useful.
Also it's possible to buy subscription and get more in-app options.
Then is this app Paid or Free ?
As far as I understand it's paid.
But when I select Paid option in Developer Console, then it requests to provide price of the App. But App, by itself, is free to use.
What price should I enter then ?
Or is it Free ?
The difference between paid and free is at the time of installation. Do you have to pay to install the app or can you download it for free. In other words, does the button in the store say "buy" or just "install"?
It does not matter whether the app has in-app purchases (1) or ads later on. Both free and paid apps can have that but most app that rely on subscriptions and in-app purchases will be free.
The official developer's guide explains it here: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6334373
For an overview of all the monetization options check out the course linked on https://play.google.com/console/about/guides/monetize/
The important points for the decision:
Paid apps are not available everywhere. See https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/table/3541286 for a list of countries and limitations.
Paid apps cannot be set to a price of 0. This means no "This week free" type of promotion. There is in fact a minimum price you can set.
Paid apps can be converted to free apps but never back. Whether existing customers will like you for that or how you could compensate them is a different question.
Free apps must stay free forever. You can only unlist them and publish them under a new name.
(1) Some regions do make a difference between free apps with in-app purchases and free apps without them when it comes to availability. Basically, Google will not let you download an app with in-app purchases when they can't sell you those in-app purchases in that country.
It's like this:
Free: Completely free. No cost to download. You can still run ads, if you wish. You can, also use IAP here, if you'd like.
In App Purchases: Means that the user can pay money for things within the app. Upgrades, level unlocks, subscriptions, things like that. Your app can be free, but still have this option.
Paid: You are charging people to download the app. $.99 is the USD minumum. You can, also us IAP here, if you'd like.
In other words, you can combine Free/Paid and In App Purchases, if you wish. But free to download, still means free.
I have a free app running on google play store.
I want to add In-app billing feature in my application.But still I want to keep my app free(i.e.,Not paid apps).So is it possible.I have google merchant account.
You can add in-app billing but if you have existing users you will not want to restrict features that are already available to them for free. The usual use of in-app billing is to have a free app with a basic tier of features that remain free indefinitely, and then to create a value-added tier of features that can be accessed by making an in-app payment. If you deviate from that model by charging for features that people were told they could obtain free, then you will have lots of angry users and bad reviews. I don't know whether Google would also look askance at it, but the effect on users should be enough to make you avoid it.
The one exception would be if you offer a timed free trial up front, and all of your users were told from the start that the trial would expire and could only be continued by making an in-app payment.
Yes, you have to worry about Google's policies, but treating your users well should be just as important, and will certainly affect the perception of your app.
Yes i think there is but it needs evualated/approved by Google before you can use it