# Sticky  Revenue Streams, and making money with your apps.



## jcase

*Consider this an on going post, that I will update as I have time. I am seeing ideas and feedback, as well as wanting to provide ideas for others. Have pros/cons to add? Tips? Please comment*

Currently developers have four main types of revenue stream choices for applications.


*Paid Only*
You sell you apps for cold hard cash, and that is it.
Pros
You make money from each sale.
Cons
Higher risk for piracy.
Less users, less feedback.

*Fremium*
Your app is free, but extras (new guns in games etc cost money).
Pros
Your users get a chance to try your app for free, and if you get them addicted you have a gold mine.
Cons
If your addons are not worth it, you don't make any money.

*Donation*
Your app is entirely free, but you ask users for donations.
Pros
Users love you, you give them all without requiring anything from you.
Cons
You basically need a cult following to make decent income.

*Ad Supported*
Pros
Revenue management is handled by a third party, you have to do little.
If you add is in an area that could be accidentally clicked often, you have potential to make some good money.
Cons
Revenue management is handled by a third party, you have to give up a cut of profits.
You may annoy users
Vulnerable to blocking of ads, or patching out the ad service.


I am sitting on a new project, that I am unsure of how to do a worthwhile free version. Right now I am unsure if I should do a stripped down version with minimal features, or if i should go for ad supported (I am fully able to block/remove ad blockers), or do I say screw it and provide no free version.

What do you think?


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## 1techydude

Is there a way to offer a trial?.... say 3 or 5 days past installation? I have used other apps that do this and seems to work out fine. If that is not an option then just charge....your time is worth something!


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## dustinmj

I've only had experience with free version / paid version. Which likely falls under freemium. From my couple of apps that follow this mentality I've seen 20X users of the free version and high rates of piracy. Also, I've seen kang versions available at a lower cost. I personally think this is the best method for monetizing apps from a single developer in the current market.

Would love to hear feedback on this.

Great idea for a thread and great rundown jcase.


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## jcase

1techydude said:


> Is there a way to offer a trial?.... say 3 or 5 days past installation? I have used other apps that do this and seems to work out fine. If that is not an option then just charge....your time is worth something!


To do a trial right, it involves a 3rd party authentication server and tracking of user/device. (otherwise it could be uninstalled/reinstalled). This is not something I want to put up with.


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## jcase

dustinmj said:


> I've only had experience with free version / paid version. Which likely falls under freemium. From my couple of apps that follow this mentality I've seen 20X users of the free version and high rates of piracy. Also, I've seen kang versions available at a lower cost. I personally think this is the best method for monetizing apps from a single developer in the current market.
> 
> Would love to hear feedback on this.
> 
> Great idea for a thread and great rundown jcase.


Free/Paid is different from freemium. Fremium is a free app, where you buy in app extras, like virtual money or advanced weapons in games.

Handling piracy has to be addressed in a separate thread, which I will when I have time.


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## yarly

Tracking users also means tracking something unique they can't easily change like IMEI/MEID/ESN. Anything else would not always be unique to a device. A lot of users tend to complain when you ask for the phone ID to retrieve that as well. That can also have issues on devices that do not have one of those (like some tablets) and if someone sells the device.

http://android-devel...tallations.html

The route I take is offering a limited scale app they can try and then give an in-app purchase to acquire more/rest of the content. Works better for games as you give all the features and only limit levels they play, but it can be applied to normal apps as well in a slightly different manner. Just have to make sure you give them what looks like enough content and word things correctly so they don't feel your app was doing a "bait and switch" and give you a bad rating.


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## jokkel

yarly said:


> Tracking users also means tracking something unique they can't easily change like IMEI/MEID/ESN. Anything else would not always be unique to a device.


A user might have more than one device he wants to use the app on. So this isn't a very good idea.


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## yarly

jokkel said:


> A user might have more than one device he wants to use the app on. So this isn't a very good idea.


o rly?

That is kind of implied by using such things for tracking (well that and the link I post does say that too)


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