Purchasing a subscription or unlocking content in an app is pretty straightforward. According to an Android developers blog post, Google has unveiled some interesting new monetization options for developers to use in their apps. This, Google feels, will benefit both seller and buyer.
Multi-line Subscription lets developers sell different items as a bundle subscription
This news comes hot off the tails of Google I/O. When it comes to subscription services, options can be pretty limited at times. Packages can either have more than what you want or not enough. Multi-line subscriptions let you pick multiple items and bundle them together under one price.
This will give developers the option to sell their items separately and have the user customize their plan. This could really help drive sales. Giving users the ability to pay for only what they want should entice more people to buy content.
Say there’s a television app where you can unlock all of the channels for $12 per month, but you really want to watch sports and news. You’d be able to bundle sports and news and only pay for those instead of a bunch of other channels that you don’t watch. What’s neat is the fact that you can change and cancel any item at any time.
Pre-paid plans let you buy items for a limited amount of time
What’s perhaps the most interesting option coming to developers is the pre-paid plan option. This lets you buy items on the app, and keep them for a certain amount of time. Basically, you are renting the content instead of buying.
What makes this a really useful tool is the fact that you will be able to pay for what you need when you need it. If you have your doubts about a certain item that an app is selling, you will have the ability to try that item out (most likely at a lower price) before committing to it. There’s no worse feeling than paying money for something that you end up disliking.
Also, if there’s an item that you only need for a certain amount of time, this will come in handy. Say, you want to use a meditation app, but only for a few days. Instead of buying the full experience, you can simply own it for that short amount of time. You will have the ability to extend the length of time that you can use the item before it expires.
We can’t really tell when we will start seeing these changes hitting apps, but if Google is correct, these new monetization options will make purchasing services and items from apps much more convenient.