Apple doesn’t always make grandiose announcements when it isn’t iPhone time, as a matter of fact, they rarely make announcements outside of ones that have had a hype train going. But today, the Cupertino giant has made the biggest upgrade to App Store pricing it ever has.
While the announcement may not be that exciting to you, it’s quite important. Apple has added 700 new price points to the App Store, allowing developers to price their apps a little differently to what they previously have.
Up until today, you’d have noticed (probably not, can’t say I really did) that apps were priced, say, $1.99, $9.99 or $29.99, as some examples. Now, with these new App Store changes, you could scoop up an app for $10.50.
Under the new App Store pricing system, all developers will have the ability to price their apps as low as $0.29 and, upon request, go up to $10,000. This had us thinking, what’s the most expensive app available in the App Store?
The answer we found was CyberTuner. While there were others that took out the top spot on the SEO pages Google was returning, piano masters CyberTuner was available in Australia.
While the App Store pricing was listed as $1,599, it’s actually $US999. Which brings me to the next part of this update.
As part of this announcement, Apple is allowing developers to take advantage of storefront pricing. In each of the App Store’s 175 storefronts, developers will be able to leverage additional pricing conventions, so, if you’re an Australian developer with a mostly Australian customer base, you’ll be able to set an AUD price as the fixed price. This means if your app is $9.99, the price presented to U.S. customers (in USD) will fluctuate, rather than the other way around. Developers will still be able to define prices per storefront if they wish.
It’s an interesting time to be making an announcement like this, given Elon Musk dot com’s recent App Store removal spat and it wasn’t exactly the App Store pricing update many were expecting in the wake of the showdown with Fornite publisher Epic Games, which, among other things, touches on Apple’s 30 per cent cut of all App Store purchases (15 per cent if you qualify for its small business program), either. This 30 per cent/15 per cent cut still remains, by the way.
These new pricing enhancements will be available for apps offering auto-renewable subscriptions starting today, and for all other apps and in-app purchases in 2023.
It shouldn’t change all that much for you as a consumer, but it will hopefully create more flexibility for developers.