Freemium in mobile applications. The story of one failure and one success

One of the most effective models for monetizing a mobile application (gaming or normal) can be freemium. Last time we talked about the main factors of freemium monetization in gaming applications. And now let's consider the cases of using the freemium model in non-gaming applications with specific examples.

There are two such examples in total, and the first one is not entirely successful - the story of the creator of the Comfy application, Shaveb Hussen, which has been discussed for more than a month on the Web. The second example is the experience of the developer Paul Brown, who from his personal experience decided to show that freemium can be a very profitable model.

So, example number 1

This case is told by Shaveb Hussain, author of the iOS application Comfy Read. This is a relatively simple extension program (a feature supported by iOS 8) that allowed you to send articles from the Web to the Kindle reader in .mobi format. The application is installed on any iOS device, after which the user can send long articles directly to the Kindle directly from the browser for more comfortable reading.
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At first, the author was not going to upload his application to the Apple catalog at all, but after a while he decided to do it “out of professional curiosity”. Shaveb did not promote Comfy Read, deciding to try out in practice only organic search and downloads on the App Store.

Comfy Read appeared on the App Store on January 21 of this year, priced at $ 1.99. For his program, the developer made a simple website with a page of documentation and contacts, and soon the users themselves began to find the application in the catalog and buy it. It should be noted that Shaveb indicated the keywords for his application (here we tell why this is SO important), and since the program is mono-functional and designed to work with the Kindle, its search was easy. Plus, there are millions of Kindle users and tens of millions of iOS device users in the world, so ComfyRead really began to buy.

Search and find

For the App Store, so-called zombie applications are not uncommon (by the way, we will write about them next time), which no one downloads and which do not bring money to their developers. Comfy Read turned out to be quite popular in its niche and even began to bring some money. The developer - a person who didn’t need much money (and here we are talking about amounts of about 10–15 dollars a day) didn’t need much, he was more interested in the additional features of the application, with which real problems could be solved.



The author removed his application from the App Store on May 17. He wanted to conduct several experiments on the monetization of his program. It is worth noting that in 5 months of being in the application catalog, Comfy Read brought several hundred dollars. With its help, users processed more than 10 thousand url-addresses. The author was pleased to see only positive reviews.



Increasingly began to appear detailed reviews with the wishes and requests of users.



The application’s conversion rate at the time it was removed from the catalog was 6–9%. As a result, only in April, the author sold 97 copies of the program.

Approximately the same result was obtained for other months.

Go to freemium

Shaveb decided that if a potential Comfy Read user downloads the application for free and then tries it out at work, then the probability of making purchases within the application will increase. Thus, the developer hoped to increase the level of conversion / monetization.
For attempt # 2, a new version of the program, Comfy Read 2, was created, with the possibility of processing several articles for free and the need to pay for the application to continue working to exhaust the “credit of articles” limit, which implies one article per day. When paying for a “loan,” the user was able to send articles to the Kindle at any time.

According to Shaveb, one article per day was quite enough to test the application by the user. At the same time, there was a possibility that this would be enough for most people, so the program will not bring money. However, all this still needed to be checked. Already on May 16, the application again appeared in the App Store. Again, no marketing, only organic:



The conversion rate for users visiting the application page was 27.83%, which is a very good result. So, one of the three people who opened the application page, downloaded the program. This is 300% better than in the previous case.
“And what about the income, did you manage to earn more?” - you ask. Here is a screenshot:



Yes, in 20 days - only 5 purchases. Shaweb / Developer / Application Creator The author was somewhat surprised by this result.
In conclusion, he says that Freemium is not always the best alternative. In some cases, this model allows you to increase the level of application downloads, but the cash flow is running out. On the other hand, if you need not a profit, but the number of downloads, then freemium is clearly a more profitable option.

But, as always, and with this it is possible to argue.

Story number 2

Here we will talk about another developer, Paul Brown, who talks about a different experience of changing the monetization model of the application to freemium. His EZ Grade app hit the App Store in July 2012. Then he decided to sell the program (the application itself is intended for students and allowed to count points in the learning process). For the first six months, the program brought Paul about $ 200. After that, the developer transferred the EZ Grade to a freemium model.

On the bottom of the program window, an advertisement was launched, which could be turned off by paying small money. Plus, the student had at his disposal another necessary function for scoring. The new version was released in January 2013. Immediately there were more downloads, and the profit from purchases within the program significantly exceeded the profit from the sale of the application:



In this case, the increase in income is related to a factor that the developer did not take into account: the application was used not only by students, but also by teachers who, when making a purchase inside the application, received a function that allows them to speed up the calculation of students' points. The average time to work with Easy Grade was 12 minutes. And this is a significant achievement for the application where advertising is used.
By the way, the same author recently conducted another experiment: he doubled the cost of in-app purchases for Cingleton talk . As a result, the number of purchases remained the same, and the profit received by the developer doubled.

As output
Of course, these two cases cannot be used for a serious analysis of the freemium model attached to non-game programs for mobile devices. But it becomes clear that it is not always clear for a novice developer: freemium is not a panacea at all. This is a complex model that can work, and can show a negative result.

At the same time, these two specific cases can be very useful for developers who choose the model of monetization of their non-game applications here and now.