Outlines 10 Ways to Monetize your iPhone, iPad, and Android apps. Presented in

1. MONETIZING MOBILE APPS
Dave Stevenson
@dnstevenson

2. I SELL APPS
(only iOS and Mac)

3. 10 WAYS FOR YOU TO MAKE
MONEY WITH APPS
1. Paid
2. Advertising
3. In-App Purchases
4. Webapp Subscriptions
5. Subscriptions
6. Sponsorships/Promotions
7. Lead Gen
8. Affiliate Sales
9. Analytics
10. Super-Secret Way

4. #1 - PAID
• Simple: You set your price,
people buy
• Apple keeps 30%
• Don’t forget about ongoing
costs: support, hosting, etc
• Customer for Life - People
Expect Free Upgrades
• Higher Price != More Money
Day One

5. #2 - ADVERTISING
• Typical with Free Apps
• Is Your AppUsed One-Time
or Does it Have a Long
Lifespan?
• Needa lot of downloads to
make any sizable money
• Expectpennies per day for
each 100 downloads per day
Airplane Quiz

6. Verbs & Jamie’s Recipes
#3 - IN-APP PURCHASES

7. #3 - IN-APP PURCHASES
• Lots of Flexibility
• Free + In-App (“freemium”)
• Paid + In-App
• Different In-App Purchase Types:
• Tokens (consumable) - think Games
• Upgrades (non-consumable) - Free-to-
Pro Upgrades, Additional Levels/Content
• Expect 1-5% conversion rate
• If 100 people download app, 1-5 people
will make in-app purchase
Tattoo You

8. #4 - WEBAPPS
• UsersPay for Services
through Webapp
• Distribute Your Mobile App
for Free
• Reach More Customers
• Requires
Double Work:
Mobile App + Webapp
Evernote

9. #5 - SUBSCRIPTIONS
• In
Order to Get New
Content, User Must
Subscribe
• Typically Magazines
• Not Widely Seen Yet
• 1-5% conversion
Kids-In-Mind

10. #6 - SPONSORSHIPS /
PROMOTIONS
• “Brought to you by XXXX”
• Like Advertising-
Companies Pay You to
Feature their Product or
Service
Twitter

11. #7 - LEAD GEN
• Companies Pay You to Get
them Sales Leads
• High Trust is Required
• Sometimes viewed as
“slimey”
• Super Low Conversions
• Volume, Volume, Volume
Zillow

12. Chomp & iRecommend
#8 - AFFILIATE SALES
Earn a % on Purchases User Makes Through Your App
Low Margins - 5% on 0.99 = 4 cents

13. #9 - ANALYTICS
• Peoplewill pay for
anonymous analytics data
from your app
• Not Against Apple’s
Standard TOS to collect
SimpleNexus

14. #10 - DON’T
• Not All Apps Need to Make
Money
• Banks, Marketing, etc
• You Can Still Make Money
• Build Them for People
• Invest in Them
• Work for Them
Chase

15. REVIEW: 10 WAYS TO
MONETIZE YOUR APPS
1. Paid
2. Advertising
3. In-App Purchases
4. Webapp Subscriptions
5. Subscriptions
6. Sponsorships/Promotions
7. Lead Gen
8. Affiliate Sales
9. Analytics
10. Don’t

16. MONETIZING
CONSIDERATIONS
• User Expectations
• Your Costs
• Market
• Do Some Math

17. USER EXPECTATIONS
• There
is a race to the bottom - $1 is almost too much for
some users
• Monetize and Price According to Category Expectations
• Simple Games = Free + In-App Purchases or Paid
• Niche Apps = Paid w/ Higher Price?
• News App = Advertising

18. YOUR COSTS
• One Purchase == Customer for Life
• Lifetime-Value of Customer == 0.70 ?
• Support, Infrastructure (Hosting, Bandwidth), APIs, Partners
• Instagram’s Monthly Hosting Bill: 2 nice cars each month!

19. MARKET
• How Many People are in Your Target Market?
• Now, How Many of those People Have iPhones?
• Next, How Many of those People with iPhones will Purchase Your
App?
• Rule of 1%
• 1.5m gardeners, 15k w/ iPhones, 150 will buy my app
• Luckily, there’s more than 1.5m gardeners :)

20. DO SOME MATH
• 100
apps downloaded each day at $0.99 = $70 or $2,100 per
month
• $2,100 per month is $25,200 per year (just above poverty)
• Thinkingof Doing Adwords? $0.25 per click + 25% conversion
rate = cost $1.00 to make $0.70
• Even worse with realistic 1-3% conversion rate

21. PARTING THOUGHTS
• Each
Monetization Strategy May Have Different Business &
Marketing Strategies
• Monetization Strategies Can Be Combined Together
• Paid and Advertising are Easy to Dip Into
• Just remember to watch your costs
• Freemium will be the most interesting space to watch

23. GOOD LUCK!

24. THANKS!
• web: http://www.stevensonsoftware.com
• email: dave@stevensonsoftware.com
• twitter: @dnstevenson