When Smule’s Ge Wang, Lyricfind’s Darryl Ballantyne and Tapulous’ Bart Decrem got together to discuss mobile applications at the San Fran Music Tech Summit, the hottest subject was application pricing. While music publishers have searched far and wide for better monetization strategies, few facets of the business have shown the same revenue growth as mobile apps. Thanks to the iPhone, customers are used to paying for mobile applications and according to Appsfire, all but one of the top grossing apps is priced above $2.99.
Appsfire recently released a list of the top 50 grossing apps in the App Store and the results are surprising. Based on a sample compiled from 1200 devices and calculated using a UNITS SOLD x UNIT PRICE formula, only Flight Control is priced as low as 99 cents.
Applications such as multi-surveillance video feed app iRA Pro ($899.99), mobile podcasting application Poddio (149.99) and TomTom’s Western European navigation app ($139.99) are the list’s most expensive products. Meanwhile, more well known apps like Tweetie ($2.99), Midomi’s music identifier ($4.99) and Air Sharing ($4.99) are more moderately priced at the low end of the spectrum.
Says Appsfire, “If your app brings something real to the table, be it a game or a utility…then price it accordingly. The price is right when there is a salary at the end of the month. Don’t succumb to the temptation of the 99 cent app, it’s a lure and only serves to feed the get-rich-quick fairy tales that even kids would find hard to believe.”
Developers should remember to calculate Apple’s percentage into the pricing structure as well as the fact that the top downloaded apps are not necessarily the top grossing applications. To see the complete list of top grossing apps check out the Appsfire release.
