Ask HN: Mac App Store worth it for a $0.99 app?

5 points by gu009 187 days ago | 14 comments

I've developed a Mac app that's a simple 1 trick pony, aimed at a niche audience (music / video / content producers). It solves a problem I couldn't find any other solution to, and I've been using it myself & have been really pleased with the results.

I've been thinking about putting it up for sale, and given it's a simple app for a niche audience, $0.99 seems like the the reasonable price point. It feels like it wouldn't be good value at a higher price, I don't know if I'd buy it for more than that myself.

At this price point, I'm wondering whether the Mac App Store is worth the cost of admission. I'm not a "proper" developer, I'm just dipping my toe into making apps and want to share 1 simple tool I've made at a price that feels reasonable. I'm questioning whether this app would make back the $99 per year fee.

This is small potatoes for many on HN I know, but I'm interested in any advice anyone might have. Thanks!

jjice 187 days ago |

Echoing others, without knowing your product, I'd lean towards a minimum of $5 and maybe upwards to $20. Targeting professionals makes it easier to sell at the price, and $1 does come off as a "too good to be true" price.

I personally think selling on the App Store makes plenty of sense because it has reduced friction for sales. People already have their credit cards in and can purchase in a single click. Some comments say that you shouldn't have to pay to distribute your software, which is completely fair! But there is real value in the reduced friction. I believe (don't quote me) Apple charges $100 per year and 15% on sales under $1 million in revenue.

Since you don't have to convince strangers to enter their credit card on your site (it's hard to show to a random person that "no, it's all handled by our trust worthy payment processor"), I think that 15% ends up being worth while.

Or, offer it on both and app store and outside of the app store and run some metrics on how sales are on each. Maybe include a discount on your personally hosted on if you'd like. Gumroad is an option here.

gu009 187 days ago |

Thanks very much for these replies, I really appreciate the advice.

I hadn't even thought of the point most of you have raised, that $0.99 would signal "this is crapware". My thinking had entirely been "well it's a 1 trick pony, that 1 trick can't be worth more than $0.99 to people", and I expected the responses to be more along the lines of "for $0.99 you shouldn't bother with the Mac App Store and just use Gumroad".

After reading these responses, my thinking is now this:

1. Upgrade it to 2 or 3 tricks - I've already started doing this and it's going pretty nicely. The things I'm adding might have occurred to me to add eventually, but the responses to this post helped spur me on to add them now, so thank you.

2. Aim for a price point of ~$10-$15. In the audio / video production software world, that is still quite cheap for a utility app, but the 2nd and 3rd tricks I'm adding should put it in the realm of good value at that price point (I think).

3. Still up for debate whether Mac App Store is worthwhile - putting $99 per year into ad spend is potentially a better use of that money, but I already have a grasp on some more targeted avenues to get the word out to its target audience. Plus the seamless auto-update aspect of the Mac App Store suits this app & its target audience well also

thisislife2 187 days ago |

As a developer you should NOT have to pay Apple or Google or anyone any money to create / distribute software. Developers create real value to a platform, and no self-respecting developer should encourage this kind of exploitation. App Stores also exploit customers and also violate their privacy.

Note that the usage of App Stores on a Mac is not at the same level as that of iDevices (where everyone is forced to use the Apple App Store to install any software). And many Mac developers also sell / distribute their products outside it. Since your application is a Mac app, you do have a real choice to avoid App Store and distribute your app online through other means.

All that said, it's pretty hard to judge how much the App Store can help you sell your product because it depends on various factors like how useful your product is to your target market, how well-designed your product is, who your competitions are etc. Whether you can make money also depends on your business skills.

My advise - just sell and distribute the app yourself ( https://stripe.com/resources/more/how-to-start-a-digital-pro... ) and use the $99 on Google Adwords to promote your app ( https://business.google.com/in/google-ads/ ). How many people searching for the feature that your product offers, click your ad and buy your product will give you a very fair idea of the commercial viability of your app.

Someone 186 days ago | |

> As a developer you should NOT have to pay Apple or Google or anyone any money to create / distribute software.

So, how do you get a computer? Get electricity to power it? Learn how to write programs? I don’t think that “or anyone” clause is a tenable position.

> My advise - just sell and distribute the app yourself ( https://stripe.com/resources/more/how-to-start-a-digital-pro...

That page has a “Pricing” link (https://stripe.com/en-nl/pricing) that says

  1.5% + €0.25 for standard European Economic area cards
  2.5% + €0.25 for Uk cards

So, how is that “you should NOT have to pay […] anyone any money”?

I also think that’s just for the selling part. Distribution, you’ll still have to do yourself. Apple and Google handle both, plus automatic updates for your customers, for you.

(Also, for a low-selling product and a €0.99 price point, the cost of Stripe is about par with Apple’s flat 15% plus €99 per year)

thisislife2 181 days ago | | |

If you keep aside the hyperbole, you should have understood that I am talking about fighting against anticompetitive behaviour devised for exploitation by corporates. There is indeed a difference in paying 5% to stripe for their services vs being forced to pay 15-30% to Apple just because they have placed artificial technical barriers to prevent you from turning to their competitors (in some particular segment of business).

k310 187 days ago |

There's an old adage, I don't know if it's still valid, that a higher price makes some people think that the product or service is actually worth more than a cheaper one. (think open source apps and operating systems)

That said, I believe that music/video production apps start around $5 and a lot more on ios, some unknown number on mac (many ios apps run on Macs since M1/Ventura)

I don't follow mac app prices/bargains since some sale sites shut down or are just too hard to find. For ios, I look at the bargain page below, which is how I got that rough lower bound.

The "virtue" of the mac app store is the visibility to many, whereas selling outside of it (still possible and desirable) has a findability problem, unless you know how to find your customer base by whatever means

P.S. I sometimes find useful mac apps via Hacker News, but I avoid "help, get me out of here" popular social sites.

https://www.igeeksblog.com/paid-iphone-apps-gone-free/

thisislife2 187 days ago | |

I've noticed some Chinese developers create 2-3 different versions of the same app with different name and slightly different layout, and sell it at different price point on the App Store. That's a great way to determine how much to price your product.

toomuchtodo 187 days ago |

You can always lower the price, harder to raise it. As someone else said, I think $5 is reasonable for a one time purchase. I’ll spend $10-$20 on an app if it appears to have value.

carlosjobim 186 days ago |

> It feels like it wouldn't be good value at a higher price, I don't know if I'd buy it for more than that myself.

That's because you're a cheap skate hacker. $10 is the minimum price you should put. People who think $10 is too expensive are also going to think that $1 or 1c is too expensive.

runjake 187 days ago |

Consider a higher price. From a personal standpoint, I don't think an app costing $0.99 vs costing $1.99 plays a part in purchase decisions, but that's double.

Consider pricing up to $4.99 or even more, depending on your niche audience.

1/3rd the sales at $4.99 is still a win.

azhenley 187 days ago |

If I’m willing to go through the hassle of buying something, then I’m willing to pay more than $1.

tjr 187 days ago | |

Agreed. If the application is actually useful -- even if only slightly -- I strongly suspect I wouldn't think anything of paying $5.

brudgers 187 days ago |

$0.99 seems like the the reasonable price point

You can’t provide quality service at that price.

You will need 140 customers just to make back the developer fee for this year. Next year, you still have the fee to pay but those people aren’t paying you money. And of course Apple will change its platforms and you will need to change your code, update your store presence, read emails, parse documentation, etc.

Or just pull the app after a year because you are not making enough money to care.

And that will harm the people who actually care about your app. People who care are the customers you want and price is the way to find those people. People who care about what you make want you to stay in business.

My advice is to figure out the price that pays enough to make your future self care about your customers. Enough to respond pleasantly to obnoxious emails. Enough that you can go above and beyond the minimum. Enough that the work feels worth doing.

For me $100 is a good minimum price. It’s nothing to anyone serious and you want serious customers. Good luck.

henjodottech 186 days ago |

What is it?