How are top-grossing apps testing price increases?

Author: Ali Abouelatta

Tags: monetization, pricing, subscription, experimentation

Short answer: Ali's top-100 grossing app review found that about 20% tested a price increase over six months, with an average increase of about 27%. Around a third of those tests pushed harder toward annual plans, while about 10% of observed pricing experiments were not successful.

Evidence

The issue is data-report oriented: price increases are common, but the shape of the increase matters as much as the absolute price.

What changed

• Some apps raised monthly and annual prices together.
• Some apps raised monthly pricing more aggressively to make annual plans more attractive.
• Lifetime and weekly plans appeared more robust to price increases in the reviewed set.

Why it matters

• A price increase is also a packaging experiment.
• The annual-plan nudge can be built through relative pricing, not only discount copy.

Sources

1. [1] Lazyweb Research: top-100 app pricing experiments. Reports about 20% of top-100 grossing apps tested price increases, the average increase was about 27%, about a third pushed annual plans, and about 10% were unsuccessful. Source