Develop Reference

Google playstore pricing - free or paid?

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.

How should I go about adding annual subscription to existing paid Android app?

I have had a successful app on Google Play for several years. There are two versions of it: a limited free version and a fully featured paid version. This model has worked well for me, but now I am starting to worry about the long term picture - where will I get revenue from once most people who want the app have already bought it ?
I want to keep the free version the same as it is, and I would still like to sell the paid version for an upfront fee. But for the paid version, I would also like to charge a renewal fee once a year, starting one year after the user initially buys and installs it.
How would it be best to do this using the Google in-app subscription mechanism ? Also, how would I make the transition without upsetting current paid users ?

This model has worked well for me, but now I am starting to worry
about the long term picture - where will I get revenue from once most
people who want the app have already bought it ?
I'm thinking about this too. What I came up with is to add optional donations / subscriptions that people can choose to buy, in either the free or paid versions. Buying the subscription in the free version would essentially unlock the features for the duration of the subscription, as a "trial" period.
I want to keep the free version the same as it is, and I would still
like to sell the paid version for an upfront fee. But for the paid
version, I would also like to charge a renewal fee once a year,
starting one year after the user initially buys and installs it.
How would it be best to do this using the Google in-app subscription
mechanism ?
You can't really do this with in-app-billing (up-front cost + delayed billing). The best alternative would be to add the ability to buy the subscription within the free version that would then unlock the paid features. You would then have to discontinue (i.e. unpublish) the paid version so people couldn't keep buying it.
Also, how would I make the transition without upsetting current paid users ?
I would say don't even try this. If you start charging an annual fee to people who paid the upfront cost, they are going to be pissed.
I would "grandfather" in people who already bought the app. Convert the paid app into a "key" that does nothing but tell people to get the free version, which you continue to maintain / update. Then you can can check in the free version if the paid app exists and unlock paid features.
This way old users who supported you before keep the features they paid for, and only new users will have to pay the annual fee.
If you really do want to charge existing users, then the other option would be to put a notice / disclaimer in the paid version before unpublishing it that it's essentially discontinued and if they want new features / updates they have to get the free one with billing. Then existing users can just keep what they paid for and have the option to subscribe for ongoing features / updates.
This still feels crappy as users are accustomed to paying once for lifetime updates, but it's probably the best option given how Google Play sales / billing works.
Hope that helps.

Change a Paid Android app to a Free app with in-app purchasing

I have a successful paid for application on Google Play Store and want to update this app to be a free application with in-app purchasing.
I have just completed developing the free version of the app which gives users restricted access which can then be unlocked using an in-app purchase system.
The issue i have is that all my existing users who have paid for the app will upgrade and then be prompted to pay again, which of course isn't right.
Is there any way to check the purchase history of the user, identify that they have paid for the app previously and unlock the extra features without the in-app purchase?
Thanks for any help.
Lewis

It's been a year, so the OP probably doesn't need this, but in case anyone else happens upon this one...
You could approach this a couple of ways. Obviously there is some business logic on your new in-app purchasing app to track who has/hasn't paid. So the two ways I see you being able to go about this is as follows:
Idea 1:
You could do a preliminary update to your paid app that stores a SharedPreference or some other persistence in the app (you could store the versionCode, so you know what you're upgrading from and have business logic around that). Then update to the free version, and have the free version check your shared preference and do the right thing on an update from a "paid" versionCode.
Idea 2:
You could keep both apps separate (have a paid version and a free with in-app purchases) and push an update to the paid version to have a BroadcastReceiver that doesn't really do anything other than listen to specific intents and have your in-app purchase check to see if something will receiver your custom intent. If your old paid-version exists, then they paid for it, if not they didn't. (If they paid for the paid version then uninstalled you'll have problems obviously...)
Idea 3:
You could keep both apps separate (have a paid version and a free with in-app purchases), and push an update to the paid version that just posts an Intent to open the in-app purchase app (if it's installed) with some special arguments, to let you know they opened it via a paid app and do the right thing to set them up as having paid for it in-app. That opens yourself up to some detection problems though... (Solvable but kind of clunky)

You can keep the existing paid version and create another free version.
If you really don't want to have 2 versions, just make it free and tell users something like 'Contact us if you have bought the paid version. We will give you redeem code to unlock xxx'.

https://developer.android.com/distribute/tools/launch-checklist.html#decide-price
This link seems relevant, hope it helps
On Google Play, you can publish apps as free to download or priced. Free apps can be downloaded by any Android user in Google Play. Paid apps can be downloaded only by users who are in a country that supports paid downloads and have registered a form of payment in Google Play, such as a credit card or Direct Carrier Billing.
Deciding whether you apps will be free or paid is important because, on Google Play, free apps must remain free.
Once you publish an app as a free app, you cannot change it to being a priced app. However, you can still sell in-app products and subscriptions through Google Play's In-app Billing service.
If you publish your app as a priced app, you can change it at any time to be a free app (but cannot then change it back to priced). You can also sell in-app products and subscriptions.
If your app is be priced, or if you'll be selling in-app products, you need to set up a Google payments merchant account before you can publish.

I feel the most easy way is to use theese line of codes
This gives you the old version code
SharedPreferences prefs = getSharedPreferences("Name_of_Prefs", MODE_PRIVATE);
int oldVersionCode = prefs.getInt("version_code", -1);
This gives you the current version code
int currentVersionCode = getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(getPackageName(),0).versionCode;
Now you can compare and do what you want. Don't forget to update after every time
with this line of code
prefs.edit().putInt(PREF_VERSION_CODE_KEY, currentVersionCode).commit();

In my case (affirmations counter app)
my paid app is running based on sharepreference value "lastaffirmationcount"
in my new iap app i just changed the way of I'm saving the affirmations counter values like "lastaffirmationscount_foriap"
So what i did in my free with In app purchase app is,just cross checked the "lastaffirmationcount" value is not null,if its null then it means new user,if not null then it means he is old user who bought the paid app
so the old user will not suffer forever
(Optionally Once its checked i immediately ask this user to sign in with google and saved his email as a premium user to ur database)

For Google Play there's no distinction between having paid for an app or downloading it for free. For example, if an user download an app while it's free and it's later changed to paid that user will still have full access to it, even being able to download it on other devices.
There are some lame workarounds for that:
Enable google play game services on the paid version and try to convince users to connect to it. Use google play services to store "bought while paid" information to the cloud and restore it whenever that user logins
Give all the users who've bought some key to unlock features
Create a different for the free version of the game
That said, keep in mind that many games have become free after some time. Maybe the users won't mind it that much.

Is it possible to add In app billing feature to my free android app?

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

Changing from free app to paid app on Google Play

This question might be off topic, but I wanted to ask the fellow developers.
Is there a way on Google play I could change my free app to a paid app?
What would happen to the existing users if it is allowed? Would they be asked to pay when the new update is available?

You cannot change a free app to a paid app on the Google Play store. You could re-upload under a different name, but this would obviously fracture your user base.

You could add in-app payment processing to your free app and charge for enhanced features. Per
http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1153479
"By using the in-app billing feature you can add revenue-generating features to your applications, enhancing the revenue potential of paid applications and turning free applications into new revenue sources."
Now, could you disable functionality that was already available in the free app, and then charge via in-app payments to have it restored? Technically I do think it could be done, since you are in control of your implementation of those features, although you would have to investigate whether that would be a violation of Google's policies.
However, doing it might alienate your users, and if word got around they might even stop updating your app to avoid the "trap." So a much better approach would probably be to add enticing new functionality that enhances the existing functionality, and then charge for it.

You cannot. Check this
"Once your app has been offered for Free, the app can't be changed to Paid. If you want to charge for the app, you need to create a new app with a new package name and set a price."

Its not possible, we need create paid app always then you can make it free