How are top-grossing apps testing price increases?
Author: Ali Abouelatta
Tags: monetization, pricing, subscription, experimentation
Ali's top-100 grossing app review found that about 20% tested a price increase over six months, with an average increase of about 27%.
Short answer: Ali's top-100 grossing app review found that about 20% tested a price increase over six months, with an average increase of about 27%. Around a third of those tests pushed harder toward annual plans, while about 10% of observed pricing experiments were not successful.
Evidence
The issue is data-report oriented: price increases are common, but the shape of the increase matters as much as the absolute price.
The numbers
| Stat | Computed from |
|---|---|
| ~20% | Share of top-100 grossing apps that tested a price increase over six months |
| ~27% | Average size of the price increase in the reviewed set |
| ~1/3 | Share of those price tests that pushed harder toward annual plans |
| ~10% | Share of observed pricing experiments that were not successful |
What changed
- Some apps raised monthly and annual prices together.
- Some apps raised monthly pricing more aggressively to make annual plans more attractive.
- Lifetime and weekly plans appeared more robust to price increases in the reviewed set.
Why it matters
- A price increase is also a packaging experiment.
- The annual-plan nudge can be built through relative pricing, not only discount copy.
Sources
- [1] Lazyweb Research: top-100 app pricing experiments. Reports about 20% of top-100 grossing apps tested price increases, the average increase was about 27%, about a third pushed annual plans, and about 10% were unsuccessful. Source
Methodology. Product-experiment write-up by Ali Abouelatta, dated on March 1, 2024. Source links are listed below. First 1000 issue