How I paid for my free Android application

In mid-2011, I published my second app in the Android Market. The application is quite simple, aimed at the Russian market (more precisely, even at a single city), seasonal. What is most important - there were no analogues of such an application in the Android Market at the time.
The app was, of course, free. Free, but with ads that could be turned off via in-app purchase. I managed to earn $ 18.63 for advertising and advertising outages for the year. It was decided to make the application paid. How I did it - further.

About the application

First, a little more details about the application. The application was really quite simple - list, map, settings screen. The application is seasonal, respectively, once a year it is necessary to update the data.
When I decided that the application had to be paid, the number of active installations of the application was 5,431, the total number of installations was 10,781. The rating of the application was 4.73.
To advertise the application, a topic was created on w3bsit3-dns.com, plus several posts were published about its development here in Habré.

From free to paid

At first I wondered why advertising in an application brings so little money. The findings were disappointing -

• the application starts for a few seconds, the user watches the list / card - closes the application;
• The application is mainly used offline - no ads are shown.

For a long time I thought about how to make the application paid. The following options were considered -

• release a new version of the application, with updated data, as paid;
• make in-app purchase for the purchase of "update" data;
• to make a trial version of the free version of the application, through in-app purchase - purchase the full version.

I saw the following pros and cons of each approach -

New version of the application

Minuses:

• those few users who have already bought the option "no ads" will have to pay again;
• existing users must somehow learn about the new version of the application;
• new users should be able to navigate in the Android Market / Google Play to understand which version to download;
• it is necessary to make a new version, download, track statistics separately, etc. - not so difficult, but there are additional inconveniences.

Pros:

• those users who do not want to buy the paid version will be able to use the old version of the application, with outdated data.

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Purchase "update" data

Minuses:

• additional refinement of the application, including the individual informing the user that you can purchase "update" data.

Pros:

• those users who do not want to buy "update" data will be able to use outdated data.

Trial version of the application

Minuses:

• the least pleasant option for existing users is that if they update the version of the application, they could no longer use it for free;
• This may be violating Google’s policy.

Pros:

• those users who have bought the option "no ads" will be able to continue using the application for free;
• minimal refinement of the application.

results

I decided to try the last option. How it worked - the user downloads a free application or updates an already installed application to a new version, launches it - a dialog box appears that the application can run for free only 5 times. After that, it is necessary to purchase the possibility of unlimited use of the application through the in-app purchase. In the dialog box, I tried to explain why this was done. In the description of the application and in the list of changes, it was also said that the application will now work for free only 5 times. Of course, advertising was removed from the application.

Naturally, this change was negatively perceived by users. Many people think that I owe them something. But it is not about that now. Let's see what happened in the end.

The number of active installations continued to grow (the paid version was released on May 1, 2012, just at the beginning of the season) -


as well as the total number of installations -

Of course, the number of deletions of the application has increased -


But the rating of the application suffered most of all - it dropped from 4.73 to 3.04 -


At the same time, for the period from May to October 2012, I earned about $ 170 on the application.

findings

In October of this year, I again made the application free. Those who bought the "paid" version will continue to use the application without ads.
The conclusion I made is that you should think over the options for monetizing the application immediately before it is published on Google Play. You can make a free application for a fee - but it will be expensive (in my case - the rating of the application has greatly decreased).