No matter what kind of app you’re creating, whether it be an actual app or a mobile game you hope will take players by storm, as a developer there’s almost certainly one thing on your mind which supercedes most other thoughts. How to make money off of your creation. Mobile monetization is extremely important if you hope to gain revenue from your app, and there are many ways to engage in monetizing it but it can be challenging or at the very least time consuming to sit down and figure out which methods to use for your app specifically. One way would be using app monetization companies that can help you with the process and in some cases you’ll need it. We’ll go over some of the different methods and strategies that can help you along the way.
Two of the most obvious methods for monetizing are freemium apps/games or paid apps/games. Paid apps are the most straight forward since they lay out a specific price for the cost of your app to be obtained by users. By setting up your app or game to be a paid model, you can be assured that you’ll gain revenue from it so long as people are interested in what you have to offer and actually download it. The only thing that isn’t guaranteed is whether or not you can grab in users to pay for what you’ve created. Users are less apt to buying apps and games from new developers so this is something worth considering. This is why many developers choose to go with something that’s freemium, because users may be more inclined to download an app and give it a try if it’s free. There’s a negative stigma with freemium apps but it doesn’t have to be this way. Freemium doesn’t have to mean your app will be laden with IAPs that annoy the user. IAPs also don’t have to be a bad thing as long as they aren’t running rampant throughout the app and acting obtrusively. Your app for example could be a free install that acts as a trial for the full version for a limited time, which then prompts users to buy the full version down the line or continue using for free with either a stripped back model of the app or with an ad-supported version. You could also offer a more basic version of your app/game for free from the get go, and offer users a one-time in-app purchase to unlock the full version features. You could also simply implement in-app purchase for various things like specialized stickers (commonly used in messaging apps) or refillable/consumable items like health pots or currency which you’ll often see in many free games.
Since we’re on the topic of payments, if your app is the right kind you could utilize a subscription model. You’ll see this a lot for cloud storage apps, apps that offer music streaming services, or apps which offer access to ad-free video streaming each month. Some big name examples for video streaming apps which use a subscription model are things like Hulu and Netflix. These apps are typically free to download and install, but using them requires a login which in turn requires a subscription fee to get set up. Sub fees don’t necessarily have to be monthly, they can be a small annual fee or you could set things up for monthly payments with the added option of annual for those who want it.
Another way to monetize your app or game is with ads. Mobile advertising is a great way to make revenue, but like the rest of these methods you’ll want to make sure and choose the right form of mobile advertising to fit your app or game. There are more than a few ways to advertise and in some cases you can pair a few different methods together. You could even implement as many methods as possible to increase your chances of raising your app downloads which gets more installs and more eyes on the ads used. Interstitials are one way to used advertising, and you’ll see these a lot in games usually after a game is finished loading up or after certain points of completion. These can be used to show an ad for another app download, they can even be videos which the user views. Other methods used are offer walls, which present a page to the user with multiple different offers like viewing ads for free in-game or in-app items to be used, notification ads which generally push ads to users as a notification in their status bars, as well as lock screen ads and survey advertising, both of which are models which are newer than the others and emerging. There are more than a few different methods to consider, and more than one could be a good fit for what you’re offering. It just comes down to researching your options and deciding with what you feel is a good way to go.