The basics

Had a great app idea and now you're figuring out how to make money with it?

There are countless ways of making revenues with your app, however, the real challenge is making money with it without decreasing the quality of users' experience.

Here is a list of 5 ways in which you can monetise your app – and there's no best option, it will always depends on what your app does. Some apps are naturally easier to monetise while others are trickier.

1. Ads (sponsored content)

Let's be honest: we all hate apps with ads. Nevertheless, they can still be a good option depending on the type of app. For example, apps that have some form of newsfeed usually work well with ads. The advertisers can insert their banners within the user newsfeed and the ad will naturally blend in the user experience while they scroll down. These are often referred to as "sponsored content" rather than ads. Needless to say, always avoid pop-up ads at all cost!

2. Transaction Fee

Charging a transaction fee is usually the best option if your app allows users to buy products & services from each other or from sellers. This is the case with apps such as ebay, Etsy, Eventbrite or even Airbnb and Deliveroo – the apps make a profit on a transaction fee every time the user makes a purchase. Usually the fees are low, ranging from 2% to 10% of total transaction. Some apps have fixed fees instead of percentages, for example, a restaurant bookings app that charges £3 on every transaction.

3. Paid App

This is very simple: you can charge users before they even download your app! Some people really dislike paid apps – which makes sense since the user can't even see how the app looks like before paying for it. However, a paid app can also give off an impression of trustworthiness and quality. If someone is really looking for a top quality app to edit their photos, they might trust more an app that costs £9.99 instead of the competitor app which is completely free to download.

4. Premium Account

Some apps are completely free to download and to use, but there might be some extra functionalities which are only available to premium users. This is frequent in dating apps for example, in which premium account users have extra features such as boosting their profile's visibility or sending romantic messages to another user. In general, premium accounts are a very good way of monetising apps. What is so great about them is that they allow users to see the app and use it for a bit before they decide to pay for the entire range of features the app can offer.

5. In-App Purchase

Many apps nowadays rely on selling digital content as their source of income. This is particularly common with games for example, in which the user buys items to increase their in-game abilities that are only consumed digitally. Other apps allow purchasing exclusive paid content, articles or videos, for example.

That's it!

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