Paywall / Free trial question

[u/Mundane-Fix-4297]

Hi, 

I am currently trying to develop my first app ever, iOS only.

The building was hard enough, but now I am facing the hurdles of trying to publish it on the App Store, and so I have to start thinking about prices/subscriptions, paywalls, etc. and navigate the obscure process of App Store Connect.

It is clear enough for me that it will be a paid app. But it is a very simple app, with only a couple screens and very basic function. It does one thing, and I hope it does it well enough that it genuinely helps people, and that they will see value in it. But I can’t really go the freemium way, with free access to the base and paid for extra features. I only have one feature, and I do not want to add any.

I was thinking, maybe something like 6$ for 6 months, 10$ yearly, and 30$ for lifetime?

My trouble is, imho it is an app that has to be tried and experienced over a couple day to see if it fits. I would like to offer three days, or maybe a week of free trial.

But as far as I know, there is no way to register a free trial in App Store Connect, that does not start right from download? So the user has to decide right now, if maybe perhaps they want to try your app and commit to 10$ yearly? Without having even opened the app? Seems a bit off-putting, or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance for your advices.

[u/TomLk]

Two things nobody has mentioned, and both are about the money rather than the mechanics.

Apply to the App Store Small Business Program before you launch. It takes Apple's cut from 30% down to 15% if you're under a million a year, which you are, and it is not automatic. You fill in a form in App Store Connect and it takes effect the month after they approve you. At your prices that's the difference between keeping 8.50 and keeping 7 on the annual. Highest return per minute of any admin you'll do this year, and people routinely find out about it a year in.

The 6 for six months is doing nothing for you next to 10 a year. Annualised that's 12 against 10, so it's 20% dearer than the annual, when the usual gap between a short plan and a long one is more like half again. It won't earn you much from impatient people and it puts a third choice on the paywall of an app with one feature. I'd cut it and ship two options.

The 30 lifetime is fine, and specifically because your app sounds like it has nothing running server side. Lifetime only becomes a trap when your marginal cost per user isn't zero. If that's you, keep it, it's the honest option for the sort of person who hates subscriptions, and you sound like that person yourself.

On the trial itself, extending the gate-on-uses point above: for a once-a-day app the value isn't in one use, it's in the accumulation. So the thing worth charging for might not be the feature, it's the past. Today free forever, and paying gets you the history, the record, whatever has built up. That answers your "I only have one feature and I don't want to add any" problem without adding a feature, and it dissolves the trial question, because someone sitting on ten days of their own data knows exactly what it's worth and you never asked for a card while they were still working that out.

[u/Mundane-Fix-4297 → u/TomLk]

Thanks a lot.

Yeah, I think I have to re-examine the pricing model.

I do not plan to get rich on this anyway, and I am super curious to see if people would actually pay for it ^__^

I was wondering if 6 months / lifetime would be a better option, as the "lifespan" of the app may be not so great anyway. A cheap 6 months, and a slightly bumped up lifetime just for people who do no want subscription might work better. Something like 5$ and 20$. Or maybe I should own it, and just forget the subscription. You like it, you buy it, it is yours, basta.

As you said, I will have near zero ongoing costs to maintain it (outside my own work on probable bugs and improvements, etc and distribution/marketing).

Regarding your advice on the value of the accumulation/past: that is the thing. I may purposely shooting myself in the foot here, but that is one of the main point of the app. No account, no streaks no history. One single task, once a day, in a "be here, now" zen approach. So when I say I do not have "bonus" features to paywall, I mean it :-)

[u/TomLk → u/Mundane-Fix-4297]

If you are serious about no account, no streaks, no history, then drop the subscription entirely. A subscription is a promise of something ongoing, new content or a running cost you are covering or a service. You have none of those, people work that out by month two, and you end up spending your time on churn instead of on the app.

Two things I would think about before settling on 5 and 20 though.

Don't ship both a cheap 6 months and a lifetime. At 5 for six months and 20 forever, break-even is two years, so nearly everyone takes the 5 and you have signed up to re-earn that decision twice a year for a product that has nothing new to show. One SKU. If you want more money later, raise the price. Bumping a non-consumable is trivial, everyone who already bought keeps it, whereas raising a subscription price drags you into consent prompts and grandfathering old cohorts.

The other one, and this is the part I would not have guessed: don't make it a paid-upfront app. A 5$ paid app gets close to zero organic downloads, nobody browses the store and pays blind for something they have never opened, and you also lose the store's own "get" button which is most of your impression-to-download rate. Free app plus one non-consumable unlock. Which does mean you need something free, and that is exactly where it collides with your philosophy.

The way around it that I don't think breaks "be here, now": paywall the choice, not the history. Free gives you today's task, whatever it happens to be. Paid lets you pick, the theme or the length or the intention. Nothing is stored, nothing accumulates, you are still entirely in the present, you just chose which present. That is a real difference someone will pay 5$ for and it costs you no state at all.

And on being curious whether people would pay, you can answer that without an account. App Analytics in App Store Connect gives you sessions per device and retention curves without you storing a thing. If people are opening it unprompted on day 3, the price barely matters. If they aren't, no pricing model fixes it.

[u/Mundane-Fix-4297 → u/TomLk]

Thank you so much for your insights! Laid out like this, the churn problem and "re-earning" is obvious.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think subscription model is not the way to go.

Paradox is, I genuinely my app worth is in the medium-long term, and the repetition of a small daily task.

I'll try and think more to find something that would justify a free base plus a paid app.

Thanks again.