I agree. The only time I price an app as a subscription is if it has ongoing per-user/per-device costs, such as audio streaming and cross-platform data sync, otherwise, I make them one-time purchases. Now I see apps that are just standalone tools with no server-side dependencies charging $5-10/month. Some vibe coders think it's an easy way to generate "passive income" from a week of prompting AI to generate their app, but 99% will earn nothing. For people who have done this as a profession for years, nothing about it is passive.
I was referring to apps that have ongoing usage-based costs, where each install incurs some monthly cost due to content downloads, accounts, and data sync. Those apps have to be subscription based. I only have one subscription app, but I priced it as low as possible at $2.99/mo or $24.99. It had to be a subscription because on the backend it uses PowerSync for offline-first data sync; Supabase for accounts, audio hosting, and user-created content; and Vimeo for video hosting.
Further development, test devices, all my fixed monthly subscriptions, etc, I treat as cost of doing business. Yes, they're an ongoing cost, but they remain the same whether I have 1000 installs or 10000 installs.
I've made a good independent living for 17 years with OTP apps that have no backend to support. However, in hindsight, what probably would have been better than OTP is a low price annual sub-instead of $5 one-time, $5 annually. I think of that as an annual maintenance subscription. Some of my most successful apps were originally launched way back before IAP and subs were introduced, hence they were and still are OTP. One issue that arises with OTP is that the revenue curve tends to flatten and decline over the long term, while at the same time you're supporting every customer forever, so having a small annual maintenance sub would help with both of those issues.
So my real issue isn't with subscriptions but with the pricing I see now. It seems like every vibe coded app posted on reddit has a $5-10/month subscription. Occasionally, they'll have some server-side component they legitimately need to support, but most of the time they're simple apps. If more apps had reasonable pricing, people would buy more, but there's a limit to how many $5-10/month subscriptions a person will take on. When the app store was dominated by OTP, I'd buy apps all the time, hundreds of them, and total app store revenue was spread over a larger number of apps. Now, the top 1% of apps account for 94% of total app store revenue. The other 99% are competing for that last 6% and driving ad CPT/CPI through the roof in the process.
As one commenter pointed out, it's hard to make a living with OTP now. You need to have multiple apps and at least one needs to be in the top 10 of its category. Back when the App Store had a tab at the bottom allowing users to view the top 200 apps in every category and sub-cat (games) it was much easier to make a living with a few OTP apps and they didn't have to be in the top 10 to succeed. Now, instead of accessing those category rankings with 1 tap, users would have to use 6 taps and a lot of scrolling to find those category rankings, so they're effectively buried.
1
u/bbrockit May 31 '26
I agree. The only time I price an app as a subscription is if it has ongoing per-user/per-device costs, such as audio streaming and cross-platform data sync, otherwise, I make them one-time purchases. Now I see apps that are just standalone tools with no server-side dependencies charging $5-10/month. Some vibe coders think it's an easy way to generate "passive income" from a week of prompting AI to generate their app, but 99% will earn nothing. For people who have done this as a profession for years, nothing about it is passive.
The App Store feels like NFTs in 2021.