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Okay. This is just a few more monetization strategies for you to consider.
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And one of those is in-app purchases.
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Now in-app purchases can be either real or virtual.
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So you're probably already familiar with virtual in-app purchases.
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These are the gems, the money, the time, the energy, whatever it is. And it's really frequently used in mobile
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apps that make your gaming experience slightly easier or faster or whatever it is.
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And the thing with in-app purchases is that both Apple and Google take a 30%  cut of whatever
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it is that you make as long as it's a virtual good.
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So this is something to be aware of because if you're going to implement because if you're going to
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implement real world purchases like hailing an Uber cab or selling T-shirts through an app then you
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should think about using alternative methods for in-app purchases
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because according to the T and Cs of both app stores, you're allowed to bypass the App Store for purchases
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only when you're selling something that is non-virtual.
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So this is something to think about.
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But of course if you're selling something that doesn't cost you anything and it's just bits and bytes
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moving around of course then you have to implement payment through the app stores.
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The other term that you'll hear quite frequently mentioned is the freemium model.
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So this is basically where you download an app for free and you have certain features that are locks
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behind a paywall.
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Now this can be either on a subscription basis such as you know your your services like Dropbox or Spotify
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or it could just be a one time upgrade to an existing app so that you get some extra features or that
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you get rid of the ads.
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Now the freemium model is something that I would highly urge you to consider in this day and time.
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It's hard to attract a users attention for a paying app currently and it's much easier to give users
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I would say 80% of the features for your app as a free app and only for those who really use
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it heavily or really want the premium features then charge those people X amount in order for them to
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get those other features.
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That tends to work out a lot better than the apps which give you like 5% functionality free and
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then the rest you know 95% is locked behind a paywall. That tends to generate bad reviews, bad
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ratings and reduces your number of downloads.
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But again of course this varies from app to app and it really depends on what it is that you're
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building.
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So have a look at some of the other apps within your own niche that you're building and see how they
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are monetizing.
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That's always a good guide.
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Now finally just three more that I want to mention. One is white labeling and this is something that
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we do quite frequently at the London App Brewery.
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So to explain this let me give you an example.
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Say you're gym and you want to create an app for your members to be able to look at the class timetable
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to be able to book certain classes update their membership etc.
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Now your needs won't really be different from another gyms name.
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So what you do as an app developer is you create something that doesn't have anyone's branding or logo
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on it and then you approach a gym and you say, "hey would you like an app for your gym?"
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If they agree if you sign a deal then you reskin it with all of their logo their branding their custom
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text etc.
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And this means that you can create one app and sell it again and again and again to the same niche. And
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it can be a relatively lucrative way of monetizing an
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app. Next is the partnership model and this is something that's still relatively new and relatively unexplored.
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One of the first apps that utilized this was Runkeeper and what they did was that they implemented these
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challenges whereby if you completed say 5,000 meters you would get the reward in the form of a discount.
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So you could have maybe 20% off Nike shoes. And the nice thing about this is that all three parties
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involved,
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so the user, the app developer and the advertiser all benefit from this model. Nobody really loses out.
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The user gets real life benefits from using the app, the app developer gets more in app usage because
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people are spurred on by these incentives and the advertiser gets exposure for something that's relatively
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cheap to implement.
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So if you're building an app that has real world attachments so say if it's something related to retail
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or something that's related to the food industry, then you can think about approaching you know brick
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and mortar shops or companies and asking if they would like to have a sponsorship deal where you get
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X amount upfront and then depending on exposure you would figure out some sort of deal between the two
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of you.
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This is something I really recommend people to think about because it's a relatively unexplored strategy
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and I've seen it work quite well in a number of cases.
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The last one that nobody really wants to talk about which I've mentioned already briefly is selling your
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user data for money.
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Now the problem with this is one of ethics I guess and conscience. If you look within the privacy policy
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of a lot of the health and fitness apps that you've got on your phone hidden in there beneath layers
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and layers of legal jargon is the right to sell your health data.
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And the problem that I have with this is probably just a personal one.
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I don't really like the idea that my health and fitness data will be sold to life insurance companies
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or health insurance companies. I don't really want people to know that you know the last time that went
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for a run was probably 2009 or that I can eat 12 donuts in a sitting.
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These are private details
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and I think that both of the app stores will in the coming years crack down on this practice.
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I mean at the moment it's still pretty gray whether if it's legal or illegal.
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But I think this is not a reliable way of monetizing your app
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and we strongly recommend against it.
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So those are some of the most common ways of monetizing your app
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and with every year you see new strategies popping up.
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And it's something that you have to think really hard about because if you get your monetization strategy
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right then it's much easier to succeed commercially than if you were you know just go for the default
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paid app route because everybody is defaulting to that.
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So have a think about what it is that your app offers,
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look at some of your competitors within your niche and see what it is that they're doing and think about
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which of these methods might fit your app best.