The primary goal of any business is to make money. If you are thinking about building your own app, the first question you probably ask is: “How can I make money off it?”. There are a number of ways in which you can generate revenue from your app. If you are just taking your baby steps into the app development world, here are some popular revenue models you can choose from.
1. In- App advertising: In-app advertising is a great way for free apps to generate a decent revenue. One way in which you can implement in-app advertising is by allowing your users to use any functionality of the app only if they make an in app purchase. You can also generate revenue by having third party advertisements on your app. These measures however, often rub the users the wrong way. A number of mobile ad networks collect personal user information like contact details and geographic location, in complete violation of thier privacy. They can induce malware in the user’s devices as well. Be sure to strictly adhere to the terms and conditions of the app store and be subtle with the advertising as well.
2. Free with Paid Upgrades: As the name suggests in this model, though the app as such is free you need to pay to upgrade it. This has proved to be an extremely smart strategy where you can get users hooked to it initially and later coax them into paying for upgrades.
3. Premium: In the premium pricing strategy the apps need to be paid for at the time of installation, however the upgrades following this are free
4. Freemium: In this pricing model, the basic model of the app is free, but you will have to pay for additional services. This is a successful and popular model, because it allows the user to decide the extent of services he wishes to avail.
Other models you could consider are in-app currency, crowd-funding, memberships and subscriptions or sponsors. You do not need to restrict yourself to these revenue models alone. You can come up with creative ideas on how to monetize and advertise your app.
