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Report: Most Subscription-Based Apps Do Not Make Money

Yeah very few if any apps I'd be willing to pay monthly sub. The only app i've subbed to is a weather app that's only $5/yr. Because it provides some features that I like in the menu bar that other weather apps suck at or don't do at all. Unless I'm some professional that needs it like Adobe product I don't see much apps that I could justify a sub. Other then streaming sites.
 
redcarlsen said:
There are free and inexpensive alternatives to both. And Office could regularly be had for <$100.
I think most of their business is from Enterprise customers. But for individuals, I don't think it makes sense.
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What in my mind was the office 365 family subscription. Personal version is not worth it.
 
I’m thinking about iPad ’calculator’ apps that have a $0.99 monthly subscription for an “ad-free experience“ and “unlimited calculations”. That’s nonsense! Your app is a calculator! Get the heck out of here with that grade-A horse apples!!!
 
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Prefer to pay one time charges. Not happy with subscription model. Sadly many apps/softwares are shifting to subscription model.
 
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If I can’t buy it I don’t want it, that simple for me. I do not subscribe to apps, games or anything like that. There are a lot of apps I would like to buy, but will not subscribe to get them. And as it has been stated before: “If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing” 😊
 
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If you want to fight this blatant rip off, simply boycott it. Simple as that.

BTW: There are always - even free - alternatives available, the app store only makes it extremely hard to search for them. Also you have to shovel away the loads of "advertised" apps, that are always the extremely profitable ones (for Apple of course!).
 
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dguisinger said:
I would prefer a "lifetime subscription" model, aka try before you buy.

Download for free, get a limited amount of time to use it on trial, and then get full functionality with a one-time subscription... because I also don't like paying for an app up front without having seen that its actually useful to me.
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That is what shareware ever was. This model was abandoned on phones.
 
i subscribe to hole19 for golf and figure i should switch to something cheaper but im happy with it.


outside of that, subscribing puts me off even trying an app. the most ive paid for an app recently is Clear, and its free to use totally, but you can buy extra fonts,themes, icons. i buy some themes because they look good, but i buy something everytime the app is updated and adds something good. i figure ill keep doing that.

i know we are all different, but for me personally, if an app charges me €3 ill happily pay it just to try it. if every time they upgraded it they popped up with a screen saying we cant charge you for an upgrade but if you want to pay €3 for something optional daft like a new icon, id do it just as a way of saying thanks for the continued work on the app.


worst thing is the pricing too, the amount of times i see apps wanting a monthly fee of around what i thought the app would be for a one off. charge me €3 a year subscription for what should be a €3 app and i can handle it, but not €3 a month.
 
contacos said:
They are certainly not seeing my money. Why should I pay a subscription for an app like "Splitwise" which was developed once and hasn't had any changes (as far as I can tell) since. What am I paying them a monthly fee for? NOPE

Subscriptions only make sense for things like Netflix to me where you actually have new content every day / month
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Splitwise is not a good example because they do have monthly recurring costs for servers synchronizing the data of users. It's not an offline app, that gets developed once and only lives on the user's device from then on.
 
macos9rules said:
Great to read this news! Subscriptions only make sense for media-based apps that keep adding content, like Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
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From a developer standpoint this does not make any sense.

First, let me state I hate subscriptions.

But, Apple changes so much in the iOS APIs every year, including introducing breaking bugs, that even if I don't have any new functionality I have to spend a lot of time adapting to the new Apple releases in September. My Apps are in a stable customer base that is not growing leaps and bounds day after day. So one-time purchases do NOT work financially.

Back when I could charge upgrade fees every 2 or 3 years worked much better, but Apple has never allowed that on iPhone.
 
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Orange Bat said:
I would love to see a return to app versions over subscriptions. You by an App for version 1 on a fixed fee. A couple years later, when the developers have made solid improvements, version 2 is released for another charge. The app stores could allow you to keep earlier versions if you want, or you could choose to upgrade. It worked for years and could be a boon to smaller developers trying to make a go with subscription models.
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That idea sort of works, but the Dev still gets dumped on in App Store review if iOS updates / upgrades break your old app.

So allowing people to keep an earlier version if they want, well, that's all downside to the Dev if Apple broke API compatibility.
 
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IG88 said:
I love Infuse. It plays any video format direct from my NAS. Has a great GUI, similar to Plex.
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I've used it - it's nice!

It's not "I'm going to pay a subscription for a video player" nice though

I fundamentally just won't do it for that type of software
 
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IG88 said:
I have one as well. Apple should support upgrade pricing. Problem solved.
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That leaves us exactly where we are today. Customers feel that devs are charging for "nothing" when apps receive updates that simply keep it working on newer versions of iOS. "Upgrade pricing" and subscriptions are the same thing, except subscriptions have a bit less friction involved. Allowing customers to use the version that Apple broke won't make customers feel good about paying for the update - they'll be pissed at the developer for not updating the app to fix bugs, or the developer for charging to fix the bugs, instead of being pissed at Apple for creating the bugs.
 
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ArtOfWarfare said:
That leaves us exactly where we are today. Customers feel that devs are charging for "nothing" when apps receive updates that simply keep it working on newer versions of iOS. "Upgrade pricing" and subscriptions are the same thing, except subscriptions have a bit less friction involved. Allowing customers to use the version that Apple broke won't make customers feel good about paying for the update - they'll be pissed at the developer for not updating the app to fix bugs, or the developer for charging to fix the bugs, instead of being pissed at Apple for creating the bugs.
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The ire should be directed at Apple if they are forcing out “updates” to OS’s that don’t need them, and in a way that breaks things too soon or if it was designed poorly and without support considered

Tech has matured so much and ALL of the platform companies need to be stretching out support timelines.

We flat out don’t need to be “pushing” and dumping versions and devices anywhere near as much as we do right now.

Apple forces new OS updates that are largely full of “features” and fixes that should come as point updates to existing versions and devices.

There are so many examples.

Was it here that somebody pointed out there was a trackpad that needed a certain version of an OS?
A trackpad … think about how ludicrous that is
 
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nt5672 said:
Apple changes so much in the iOS APIs every year, including introducing breaking bugs, that even if I don't have any new functionality I have to spend a lot of time adapting to the new Apple releases in September.
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This is the problem. Freaking Apple makes so many changes that they're always breaking apps.
Android has historically been much better on this front. Recent Android has broken a lot of apps as well.
And of course, if developers don't take the time and effort to update, now users are stick with software they paid for and can no longer use. Especially with how aggressive apple is at pushing updates.
You ever try to ignore and iOS update? It makes the device so obnoxious to use that I'd go back to dumb phone just to avoid it.
 
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ArtOfWarfare said:
That leaves us exactly where we are today. Customers feel that devs are charging for "nothing" when apps receive updates that simply keep it working on newer versions of iOS. "Upgrade pricing" and subscriptions are the same thing, except subscriptions have a bit less friction involved. Allowing customers to use the version that Apple broke won't make customers feel good about paying for the update - they'll be pissed at the developer for not updating the app to fix bugs, or the developer for charging to fix the bugs, instead of being pissed at Apple for creating the bugs.
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I feel like Apple created a sense of entitlement amongst iOS users, by:
  • disallowing paid upgrades in iOS apps
  • yearly iOS versions where Apple has no qualms about breaking APIs
Also because of historical expectations, like with Windows tending not to break APIs. For example, Adobe Acrobat Pro, whatever the final version before the subscriptions began, it worked just fine on my work PC for many years past its official EOL.
 
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