
Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies? - alc90
Hey guys - I&#x27;ve been an Android developer myself for over 4 year now. One of the biggest pain points has always been the monetisation part - which I&#x27;ve always felt is out of my control.<p>I&#x27;ve been focused mostly on free apps with ads - mostly Admob - but the little control over what ads are displayed, their format, etc always seemed to bother me. That&#x27;s why I&#x27;ve started working on an ad network for mobile apps - where the advertisers buys directly from the app publisher the ad spot - and the publisher has full control over which ad is displayed and when.<p>I wanted to ask you what monetisation strategies to you have for your apps and if you&#x27;ve ever felt the same way when you added ads in your app.
======
orasis
Unless your app is a viral, monetization can't just be a strategy - it is the
primary design criteria.

I have a 5 ⭐️ app, 7 Second Meditation, that has fantastic retention numbers,
but I didn't design it around monetization from day 1, so the LTV is too low
to do paid user acquisition.

So the app is doomed to putter along on organic installs.

An app must nail both retention and monetization to succeed.

(shameless plug: I did boost the LTV by 45% using
[https://improve.ai](https://improve.ai))

~~~
ilugaslifg
Would you mind translating this into english? Even seeing the definition of
LTV above, I still don't understand the story your comment is telling.

What is "paid user acquisition"? How would a higher "lifetime value per user"
enable you to do it? How is your app monetized to arrive at this LTV? What
would it imply for you to have "designed it around monetization from day 1",
what would be different? Why can't you change it now?

~~~
orasis
Someone downvoted you, but thanks for asking this question - it made me
realize I was communicating poorly.

Paid user acquisition is spending money, usually on ads, to get people to
install your app.

The app business is now a ruthless winner-takes-all market and the game is all
about spending $3.00 to make $3.05.

When you see pervasive ads for Mobile Strike or Game of War it means that
these games are doing a better job of monetization than anyone else so they
can buy the users and dominate the top spots in the charts.

Anyway, to advertise for your app, you're competing with every other
advertiser out there with products that earn at least a couple dollars per
clicking user. If your app only earns $.15 over the lifetime of the person
that clicked, you can't afford to take out ads.

As to "Why can't you change it now?" \- I haven't figured out a design that
would _ever_ allow it to be a high LTV product. So what I do going forward is
think very carefully about potential apps through the lens of whether or not
they could possibly be high lifetime value. If not, I won't waste my time
writing that app.

In closing it is a really really damn hard craft to master, but the multi-
dimensional aspect of it keeps it fun.

~~~
Msurrow
Great answer and explaination.

Lets assume you decide that you want to either make the app profitable or kill
it, and the assumption world is simple so there are no other concerns (like
eg. you are having fun running a 5 star app): its profit or die.

Given that assumption what would prevent you from changing the app into a
subscription based app ("service")? You could notify all your users that from
date x/y there will be a monthly fee to use the app. You put it into effect
and 99% of your users leave the app. The interesting question left is if
remaining useres*monthly fee > monthly cost of app.

Why would that not be an option for you?

------
dfabulich
We publish games. Our free games all include ads, plus a one-time in-app
purchase to turn off ads.

What we've found is that we can price that product relatively high ($5)
because the kind of person who's willing to put $1 in your tip jar to turn off
ads is also willing to put $2.

But this strategy works for us because our games are "consumable" products.
Our customers will play one of our games for a while, have a good time, and
then they'll be "done" with that game; hopefully, they'll then go on to buy
one of our other games.

If I were to launch a non-consumable long-term app today and wanted to
monetize it, I'd do it as a subscription with a generous free trial. Once I
had at least 100 paying subscribers, I'd start raising the price until the
churn rate tells me it's too high.

~~~
orasis
I have an app with 45% first month retention that is doing subscription
monetization. A huge percentage of the subscribers subscribe in the first week
so I don't know about doing a long free trial.

That said, I need to do some machine learning to figure out the optimal free
trial length.

~~~
wahnfrieden
iOS subscription free trials automatically charge the user after the trial
period is up, so it at least wouldn't require an additional action from your
users.

------
w1ntermute
Do contract work and let others deal with monetization. The problem with
creating a mobile ad network is that you're competing with Facebook and
Google[0,1]:

> • Facebook and Google have the most inventory and are still growing in terms
> of both users and ad-load; there is no temporal limitation that works to the
> benefit of other properties (and Facebook in particular is ramping up
> efforts to advertise using Facebook data on non-Facebook properties)

> • It is cheaper to produce ads for only Facebook and Google instead of
> making something custom for every potential advertising platform

> • Facebook and Google have the best tracking, extending not only to digital
> purchases but increasingly to off-line purchases as well

0\. [https://stratechery.com/2016/the-reality-of-missing-
out/](https://stratechery.com/2016/the-reality-of-missing-out/)

1\. [https://stratechery.com/2016/how-facebook-squashed-
twitter/](https://stratechery.com/2016/how-facebook-squashed-twitter/)

~~~
alc90
And do you think that having this ...more human approach..when selling/buying
ads is obsolete?

I think that high-quality apps have a loyal and passionate audiences - a
smaller one for sure - but advertisers can rest assured they have access to
the best audience money can buy.

I've never thought in terms of Facebook or Google's scale and I actually want
to take a more anti-Facebook/Google approach where the amount of user tracking
is inexistent. Just track the ad performance and that's about it.

~~~
jt2190
> [D]o you think that having this... more human approach... when
> selling/buying ads is obsolete?

My understanding is that larger companies with bigger ad spend don't have time
to hand-pick each app or web page. (Using human labor to pick apps and pages
can significantly raise the cost I presume.) Perhaps there is a marketplace
for smaller advertisers here.

~~~
alc90
Big companies have big marketing budgets and are interested in big numbers
(eg. huge number of impressions).

I was thinking in terms of a more human approach where advertisers are
actually looking to connect with their potential users.

App publishers don't sell impressions - they sell influence by allowing the
advertiser to get a spot from their app real-estate.

~~~
Spooky23
Overcast just did this. If you remember Tweetie (ancient Twitter app on iOS)
they built a little bespoke network as well.

It's certainly possible, but not scalable. If your goal is to support your own
work and you have the hustle and editorial eye, you can make money.

Keep in mind that the big players can wipe you out in a second. Overcast
exists because Apple's benign neglect of podcasts. They can wake up at anytime
and wipe the app and ad market out.

~~~
alc90
Indeed - Overcast just did this - and that was also one of the main factors
that pushed me to want to build this. I guess Marco would prefer to focus on
Overcast and not take care of the ads management system - but since AdMob was
not an option for him (and neither for me) he had to.

I'm not sure I've understood - what's not scalable? Selling ads by yourself or
using a network that helps you sell ads?

------
hashmal
\- up-front payment: one of the most simplest and sane things you can do,
which allow you to keep focused on your core product and customers (if you
have ads, your customers are the advertisers)

\- free download with unlock IAP: just a hack to provide a "try it" demo.
really a derivative of up-front payment

\- subscription based: most sustainable model, but difficult to push depending
on the niche. it is, however, the most sustainable model. an app requires
ongoing work, so at some point up-front single payment model caps your revenue
unless you manage to grow your customer base forever

these are the only strategies I consider seriously. I regularly think about
IAP (consumables for games, sounds for music apps, etc…) but it's not clear
yet how/if I can do that effectively and without compromising my integrity.

~~~
alc90
I agree also - and I would point out also that the ads approach or having a
freemium app are the only two viable solutions for mobile apps.

The subscription based model is definitely the Holy Grail of app monetisation
but it's also the hardest to achieve especially for mobile apps.

~~~
orasis
In app subscriptions are pretty simple on iOS now, though Apple is forcing you
to clutter up the UI with a bunch of extra terms and conditions info.

------
rogem002
I've been attempting to monetise my Google Chrome Extension for the last few
months (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12925467](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12925467)
). I felt I could never inject ads to my extension as I never had a sensible
place to put them.

Instead I've been experimenting a lot with one off & subscription approaches,
here are two things I noticed:

1\. When I had a subscription model, most users would sign up & almost
instantly cancel their subscription (though very few ever requested a refund).

2\. Adjusting the one off price didn't change the monthly revenue. For example
when I changed the price from $7.99 to $10, the sales decreased a little but
at the end of the month I ended up earning about the same.

(Shameless plug:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/livepage/pilnojpmd...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/livepage/pilnojpmdoofaelbinaeodfpjheijkbh?hl=en)
)

------
avaer
> That's why I've started working on an ad network for mobile apps - where the
> advertisers buys directly from the app publisher the ad spot - and the
> publisher has full control over which ad is displayed and when.

I like the idea in concept, but as an advertiser this intuitively tastes like
a strictly worse product.

Doesn't this model mean I now have to vet the inventory (users) of the app --
another cost, as well as structure my campaign around the publisher's
willingness to serve my ads -- additional variance and risk? This is no doubt
great for app publishers on paper, but why is this better for customers? That
is, advertisers?

~~~
alc90
It may be my simplest way of thinking but I've found that having a high-
quality, curated app network enables you as an advertiser to target a high-
quality and a more relevant audience. Also it's simpler to find the apps you
want to target since we've already vetted all the apps in the network to make
sure we keep a high-quality standard.

Also - I don't see the publisher's willingness a risk factor if the product,
service or brand you want to promote is a relevant one for app user base.

~~~
avaer
So are you vetting apps, or are you giving the publishers full control? You
can't eat both sides of this cake.

If you're curating for your idea of quality, you're controlling which ads
publishers can display where. This isn't a bad thing; it's how virtually every
ad network operates. But then what's different about this approach?

The risk factor is that with a traditional ad network, I know I'm buying a
certain number of impressions in a certain period of time, with analytics. But
if inventory is doled out whenever my publisher partner (or their algorithm)
feels like it, then my holiday promo campaign is a crapshoot and I might have
wasted both money and (worse) time. I'd pay a premium to get rid of this risk.

~~~
alc90
The app publishers that are going to be accepted in the network will have full
control over what ads that will be displayed. It's their choosing if they
which ad they display and where as long their app passes our quality-standards
(eg. UI/UX, number of active users, regular updates etc)

I feel like the TinyAds network is more about buying influence and exposure
and not a fixed number of impressions (that basically translates to the number
of times an ad was loaded and that's it).

Also - I'm not sure why would you think your inventory is doled out since the
app publisher accepted your ad and you have the guarantee of the ad being
displayed on their app?

~~~
avaer
So you're saying app publishers have full control, as long as you approve?

~~~
alc90
For example - except for some filters you don't quite have control over what
ads are being displayed when using AdMob. What AdMob serves - that's what you
display.

With this network - if an advertisers wants to buy an ad slot - but you don't
agree with the product or service for some reason you're just going to decline
the ad.

------
benologist
I've found the Amazon Underground App Store to be pretty cool - you get paid
by the minute by Amazon for the people using your apps so all you need to
focus on is engagement and retention.

[http://developer.amazon.com](http://developer.amazon.com)

~~~
alc90
What were your results with this type of monetisation? Do you know any
"success stories" of any kind?

~~~
benologist
You can guesstimate what it will be worth by looking at your analytics. Amazon
pay $0.002 per person per minute for US and a little less for a few other
countries. I find they pay for about 2/3 of the usage time my apps record. I
am netting a bit over $2k/week from it.

~~~
ImSkeptical
I'm curious - do you know how Amazon gets more than 0.2 cents per person
minute of value from your app, or apps in general?

If they don't, I can't see them sustaining this business model forever.

~~~
benologist
The Underground app is also a shopping app for amazon.com and they put a
promotion covering your app when it opens. I don't know if it's profitable or
not for them.

~~~
pdimitar
Do you have any promotional material for your app? I'd be interested to check
it out. What does it do?

------
ThomPete
I am currently charging a one time price for my app
[https://www.ghostnoteapp.com](https://www.ghostnoteapp.com) it's doing pretty
well but it's also hard work. I am currently working on a subscription version
of my product mostly used for team annotation of websites, something a lot of
people have been asking me about. And I really want to move towards recurring
revenue as there is much more to work with.

The best trick I can give you is start with a really low price then slowly
raise it until downloads slow down but your revenue is intact from your start
price.

I don't believe you need to ever introduce ads unless your product provides no
real value.

~~~
htkibar
Honestly I believe it needs to be priced less, if possible via use of coupons.
I believe ghostnoteapp needs ubiquity and integrations so people buy it to add
it into their workflow, as opposed making it _the_ workflow.

~~~
charlesdm
Why would it need to be priced less at this point? Based on my experiences,
he'll most definitely will be making less money. I don't see it. If anything,
he should test a higher price point.

~~~
htkibar
Simple, to attract more people for now. It needs to be ubiquitous imho, and
deeply integrated into people's workflow so that when he jacks prices up
people have to pay it or break their workflow. (which creates an incentive to
actually pay more, as a customer)

------
vbsteven
A couple years ago I had a niche Android app that I could sell for 10EUR/USD.
It made around 1500/month which was pretty decent for an app with no backend
and almost no maintenance work.

After one year a competitor showed up at less than half the price and the
party was over.

My strategy: find a niche app so you can charge a lot more

~~~
roryisok
Did you reduce your price to compete?

~~~
vbsteven
At first I didn't. Sales decreased dramatically. I then dropped my price to
the same level but sales kept slowly decreasing until it wasn't worth it
anymore (and OF did some upgrades) and I pulled the app

------
simon_weber
I sell productivity tools - Chrome Extensions and a SaaS - that solve my own
problems in a niche. I've avoided ads: they wouldn't be worth it with such
small install numbers.

For business-focused products I usually do a free time-limited full-access
trial + paid subscription. For consumer-focused products I usually do freemium
(limited version for indefinite use + paid subscription to remove limits).

~~~
seanwilson
So you can make a living on Chrome Extensions? I haven't found much data on
sales figures for paid extensions.

Also, can you change the paid subscription cost yet? It seems once you set it
there isn't a good way to experiment with different subscription fees except
creating multiple subscription types with different costs.

~~~
simon_weber
I don't currently, but I think it's possible. That said, I'm not sure I'd
recommend it. I'm building them since they're a reasonable way to handle auth
with my unofficial Google integrations (without the special cookie/cors
permissions I'd need to store users' Google credentials).

You're able to change the subscription cost on the fly (I think; I haven't
actually done it). The bigger problem is there's no easy way to do price
segmentation. This is fine for my consumer product, but I may end up rolling
my own payments setup for an upcoming business product.

------
jliptzin
As an advertiser that sounds like a nightmare to me. We want to be able to
push our creatives out to a huge mass of users instantly, track whatever
performance is relevant to us, then iterate on that to try to improve. Having
to vet individual placements on apps would be a gigantic waste of time and I
would not do it. Maybe for some niche markets it makes sense but I can't think
of any.

~~~
alc90
I'm not an advertiser and I understand your point - but I think it can be the
same amount of work pushing the ad in a black hole of ad impressions - not
knowing where your add is being displayed - just some numbers - then trying to
guess - because it's a great amount of guessing involved - what should you do
to increase the relevance of your ad.

Vetting the apps you want to advertise can also mean time spent - but knowing
what are the apps where you are displaying your apps and even who are the type
of users being the ad - I for one feel this is a more powerful approach.

But yet again - I'm not a big advertiser spending huge money on it.

~~~
CJefferson
The problem, if it is a big advert spend, it could be hundred of apps. Am i
going to vet "bubble pop", "bubble pop 2", "puzzle bubble", and 200 other
games, or just say i want my ad to be shown in puzzle games?

~~~
alc90
I think you could also have this possibility - choose an app category and get
the ad spots required.

And still - you could have more control and info regarding your app than just
"you had x number of impressions in the last y days".

~~~
jimmywanger
I think that the large ad networks do have settings that give you that
information, it's just not intuitive.

Regardless, I think you're not really solving a problem. You're giving more
information that involves more labor.

It seems like you're describing more of a labor/service company rather than a
tech company, which is fine. But the more information and control you're
giving the customer, the more labor/time you're expecting out of them.

------
soulchild37
My monetisation strategy is giving free app with basic feature and then
require in-app purchase for premium feature. I hated ads so I will never put
ads in my app, this makes me think hard on what value/problem my app will
solve or provide. ( Shameless plug: [https://komuter.pro](https://komuter.pro)
, dead simple app with only 1 view)

------
Outpox
I've made a CS:GO online tool which gets ~40k visitors/month. Since I use
adblockers I decided not to put ads on my website, but I instead placed a
Paypal donate button which didn't worked even once.

So instead I placed my steam trading link which allows visitors to make trade
offers with me. I couln't say how much it does represent but I've got ~5 trade
offers per week.

Most of the time the weapon skins aren't worth much but I'm still glad because
I've got to receive messages thanking me for the tool which is what I've
always wanted.

------
Ologn
I do Android apps, and tried lots of different advertising approaches. Admob
has always been a central ad network to consider, then everything else. So
first you want to decide if you want Admob to be your ad mediator or not. If a
third-party one works acceptably with Admob, that's your best choice.

Then you want to do the split. Admob has high fill rates and good numbers for
most countries. The top competitors usually only have high fill rates for
countries like the USA. Usually their numbers (click through rate, payment per
click etc.) is less for those countries as well. I usually send most traffic
to Admob and let a little dribble over to an Inmobi or AOL One (Millennial
Media) or whatnot.

Aside from spending $150 on a few things initially (A few months of a VPS, $25
for a Google Play developer account etc.), all the money I have spent on my
apps - advertising, translating, icon art, VPS charges etc. - have come out of
revenue. That was easier up until 2014, when people were getting their first
Android phones, and their weren't a lot of apps and Android programmers out
there. Now there are a lot of good apps, Android programmers etc., so getting
traction on an app costs more and/or takes longer.

I get e-mails all the time for some new ad network and ignore almost all of
them. Admob towers over most of the other ad networks for people building
standard Android apps with Android Studio. I use the major second tier ad
networks just for redundancy purposes.

Some people here are recommending you charge for your app right off the bat.
Here is some advice which I think might save you a lot of time and headaches.
Think of an app which you can write in a few days/weeks, but which has some
roulette wheel chance of reaching your monetization goal. An example for me
would be this Stopwatch app (
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.unwrappeda...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.unwrappedapps.android.stopwatch)
), which I worked on for two weeks, after which I released version 1 of it.
Then - promote it however you would have promoted your paid app. Then sit back
and see. What's the response to it? Not that much in the way of free
downloads? You're _giving it away_ for _free_. Think how much higher the bar
will be if people have to ante up to use the app, even if it's 99 cents.
People will also have higher expectations - it's not some free thing they
tried - they're customers who paid for it.

------
ductionist
We publish Windows apps.

Our free apps make money by promoting paid 'pro' versions of themselves, by
offering an IAP to remove ads, and by promoting other Windows apps, either
through the Microsoft affiliate network or private arrangements.

We manage these ads with in-house tech to get around the "little control over
what ads are displayed, their format, etc." you mention - we had the exact
same problem. (Lots of really scummy ads on the bigger networks.)

Enabling direct deals between app developers would be super cool, it's
basically what we find ourselves having to do anyway. Curious what you'll do
with your unsold inventory, especially when you're starting off? (Maybe fall
back to the platform's affiliate program, like the iTunes affiliate program on
iOS?)

------
thijser
We started the monetization part of AppBrain for very similar reasons about 5
years ago. We chose to have a very predictable set of ads (only non-
incentivized app install ads) that have a better user experience than regular
interstitials. Especially at that time, there were quite some scammy ads out
there and our business grew quickly. Now that Google Play has cleaned out most
of the bad acting ad networks it is a challenge to attract new developers who
recognize the benefit of a good user experience over the slightly lower eCPMs
that may go with it. I wish you best of luck!

------
IgorPartola
I made a budget app with some unique features (multiple users with synced
budgets, no bullshit UI). I use AdMob and it brings me $10/month. That is not
much at all. Not even enough to cover hosting and Apple publishing fees. I
feel that it's too niche to be a subscription model, though I do sell the ad-
free version for $10 one time. So my answer is "meh, make games with IAP is
probably the only way to make non-coffee money".

Edit: not promoting, but I like it when people show links to what they
monetize in these discussions so I am going to follow my own advice:
[https://family-fortune.ridgebit.com](https://family-fortune.ridgebit.com)

------
ericlamb89
I'm not too familiar with Admob or other mobile ad platforms, but don't they
let you sell inventory directly already? I think the reason this is less
desirable for both publishers and advertisers is the amount of work involved
in direct sales efforts. As an app publisher, you may not have time to go out
and sell direct spots on your network (which will be necessary if you don't
already have the kind of data about your users that facebook / google
provide). Advertisers have a similar problem on the other side, in that using
facebook/google services allows them to easily target their audience based on
data about them. How will your adnetwork address that need?

~~~
alc90
AdMob has some sort of direct sales feature but the billing is not handled by
them so I guess there's no interest for them there.

I think that for app publishers being featured on the TinyAds network will
increase your exposure to advertisers and help you find new monetisation
opportunities.

Also - the advertisers can get access to a loyal and passionate audience that
this high-quality apps have. I think it's easier to target this type of
audience since you know exactly on what app your ads are running.

Running an ad on Facebook or Google is too opaque to know exactly where your
ad was displayed and if it's of any relevance for your product.

I don't think that a big number of users is the only answer for advertisers.

------
DoodleBuggy
Find a niche and charge a premium. Or, make something addictive and use in-app
purchases. I am not sure there is another way.

I'd love to be wrong but I tend to think any semblance of an app store gold
rush passed by 5+ years ago.

------
yupyup
Ads. Mainly developing chat apps for Google Play and it's the simplest way to
make money for these type of sw.

It worked well until Google removed our main app from search results and it
all went downhill from there.

~~~
alc90
Do you know why did Google removed your app?

~~~
yupyup
No direct answer when reaching support.

It was some kind of penalization for some general terms like "video chat app".
Before the app was in the first 10 or so and after it disappeared completely
from results. But searching for the app by full name works. Also it
disappeared completely from the "social" category listing.

They tols us that "search algorithm is secret and complex" but we had a
previous experience like this one with an app that had unallowed content in
Google Play (unreviewed images from users showing erotic content) This one was
penalized with some months of disappearing from general terms search results
and listing.

But now no explanation. At least they should give you an answer if there is
some kind of infraction of content policy.

------
mattbgates
Ads are hard to get a decent return unless you have hundreds of thousands of
visitors. I, myself, hardly like to pay for anything, and love free products,
however, I've recently tried to figure out a pricing plan that _I_ personally
would pay for.. and use that mentality to price my products, which are often
far cheaper than the average, but still enough to profit.

My pricing is based on two audiences: individual and small business.

I assume if I were to ever get a big business, they could always register for
multiple accounts.

So this is how I normally create and price:

I offer a "free version" of all my products that have X amount of whatever I
am offering, usually around 5 or 10 for the month.

Each time the product is used, X amount drops until it hits 0, at which point,
the user cannot use the product any more. If they need more X, however, they
may purchase more X.

For a few products I wrote (still in beta), it is subscription-based where
they hop on a plan that gives them X a month. There are variations of the plan
that offer a certain amount of X depending on how much they need. If they use
more than that, they can either upgrade their plan OR purchase more of X
outright.

On their renew date (each month from which they subscribed to the plan), the
number of X restores back to that amount.

On my non-subscription based products, I offer X amount and they can use it
all up and purchase more whenever they need more, or just wait until the renew
date from which they registered, which restores their account balance to
whatever X amount is the default.

That has been my pricing method. I can't give you numbers yet on whether it
works, as I've just begun my journey into charging for the things I create,
but I just think: _How much I pay for this?_

Things that cost $50 a month? As an individual person, unless they were really
useful, probably not.

Things that cost $1.99, $2.99, $3.99, $4.99, $5.99 or $9.99 a month? Probably
more reasonable for an individual.

As for being a startup or small business? $49.99 or $99.99 is certainly a
reasonable price.

Curious about .95 or .99 pricing? Basic psychology: You are technically
getting the extra dollar, but in the mind of your consumer: they are not
giving you that extra dollar.

------
prettyrose
At RadBots we basically built an ad network for bots as well. We do automatic
targeting via insights and models built to match the audience to make it
easier on both sides. I like the idea of picking available ads, but haven't
had any users ask for this feature yet. There is also another issue of
fulfillment. All ads aren't available all the time, how do you handle that?

------
Pica_soO
I make a game, the idea to monetize at the moment of victory, aka the
highscores at the end of a match. Players buy Confetti for 2 Cents and throw
it when the camera rotates around each player detailing his archievments. The
Targetplayer gets 1 Cent, we get the other one. There are various "Throwables"
(roses, fireworks, glasses, tomatos, eggs, fish).

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flaque
You could charge money for the app. If your app doesn't require lots of people
to be on it, then selling it might be the best bet. Then your app is only used
by people who really want it. This gives you less support time and a user base
that's really enthusiastic about what you have.

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david90
We've built a free web tool [http://makeappicon.com](http://makeappicon.com) ,
somewhat we tried out if users would love a desktop version. So the Desktop
version could buy our team coffee at the end of the day.

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wiradikusuma
while we're in this topic, does anyone know any ad(?) network that provides
"pay per errands" (install app, watch video, fill out survey, anything that
can be done on mobile)? i want to give my 30k users a way to earn a bit of
extra money.

~~~
seibelj
Fyber [https://www.fyber.com/](https://www.fyber.com/)

Trialpay [https://www.trialpay.com/](https://www.trialpay.com/)

Ironsource [http://www.ironsrc.com/](http://www.ironsrc.com/)

Typically you reward in virtual currency, but you can reimburse them in cash
if you want to go through all the work of a cash-out policy with real money

~~~
saadullahsaeed
Adding a couple more to this list:

Peanut Labs (Surveys)
[http://web.peanutlabs.com/monetization/](http://web.peanutlabs.com/monetization/)
Offer Toro [https://www.offertoro.com](https://www.offertoro.com)

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chvid
Do good work as showcases to do consulting ...

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LeicaLatte
Wrong question.

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codr4life
What happened to building great software, providing great service and letting
the rest flow from there? Monetization strategy; what is that, really? How is
that ever going to lead anywhere that matters? Not that I don't have the same
issues, I too am trying hard to find a way to survive in this mess of a world;
but I'm convinced it all starts with doing the right thing, which rules out
advertisement bullshit for me.

~~~
sidlls
The large quantity of very profitable and very poorly done software is a
counter to your last sentiment.

Here's the thing: most consumers don't know enough about what "great software"
means to care much about it. They just want software that works to solve a
problem they have. They don't care if it never crashes or is written in
language X or written by a process with rigorous QA and design, etc.

~~~
codr4life
I'm not arguing that it can't be done, I too have seen plenty of examples. I'm
saying that it's not leading anywhere, individually or collectively; which is
why I suggest focusing on substance instead and seeing where that leads us. I
believe the problem is that the general public have no clue about what's
possible, and we're not doing a very good job at showing them by producing
more of the same crap.

~~~
sidlls
My point is that the general public doesn't care what's possible, and it
doesn't matter how good we are at showing them. It isn't that they're
incapable of understanding, just that they (we) have a finite budget for
attention and learning about things and the "what's possible" in software is
generally much lower in priority for that.

