More and more developers and companies decide to publish their Android applications for free but with in-app purchase purchases. The objective is twofold: to achieve a greater number of downloads and more visibility. However, it must be borne in mind that you cannot sell an application as free and have the user make an in-app payment to use the very basic functionalities of the application. This would imply a bad evaluation and negative reviews from users. Correct use of the in-app purchase would be to offer extra functionalities, which add value to the user and that really encourage them to make the purchase. But today, both developers and users are helped by these subscription solutions.
The prices of all purchases require a prior study and should not be put without thinking. The correct thing would be that all purchases are distributed equally, that is, not all purchases should be the most expensive or cheapest product. For example, the popular 94% game has the option to buy coins that help you in the game.
350 coins -> € 0.99
750 coins -> € 1.99
2000 coins -> € 4.99
4500 coins -> € 9.99
15000 coins -> € 19.99
In a perfect world, the ideal would be to get each of these 5 options to generate 20% of the revenue from the total in-app purchase. To achieve this, the following should be fulfilled:
54% of users buy 350 coins
27% of users buy 750 coins
10% of users buy 2000 coins
6% of users buy 4500 coins
2% of users buy 15,000 coins
We have seen an example of how in-app purchases are resolved in a game, but there are several methods with which to make in-app purchases. Let’s see the advantages and disadvantages of some of them, Google Wallet and PayPal:
* Google wallet
Advantages:
– It allows having linked credit cards, debit cards, and even PayPal account in several countries.
– Allows you to charge through promotional coupons and Google Play gift cards.
– It is the one used when downloading a paid application, this makes it the tool that users are used to using and, therefore, the most used method for in-app purchase purchases.
– It is used in practically all games allowing the user to easily and quickly get more lives, weapons, etc., and thus increase the engagement with the game without wasting time in other slower ways.
Disadvantage:
For the seller, it is not the most profitable method since Google takes 30% of the purchase value as a commission.
* PayPal
Advantages:
– Always keep in mind the insecurity of people when providing bank details to make a payment. For this reason, methods such as PayPal are gaining more prominence in applications every day.
– PayPal’s commission for sellers ranges between 3.4% and 1.9% plus € 0.35 per transaction, being much lower than Google Wallet.
– You are helped to incorporate this form of payment by having created your SDK for iOS and Android making its implementation very easy.
Disadvantage
The user is forced to create an account if he does not have one.
To finish, and by way of conclusion, if we want to add a form of payment within an application we must have the following clear points. Choose the method that best suits the application taking into account the commission, the engagement that you want to generate, and the ease of use for the user. Most of the applications use Google Wallet, despite its high commission since it is the most used tool and the one that users feel most comfortable with. Finally, we must set the prices by doing a preliminary study.
