$10,000 for Flappy Bird? Not quite, but Apple App Store to get pricing overhaul
App Store pricing will be far more flexible with 700 new tiers, among other changes
The Shortcut Skinny: Fistful of incremental prices
📊 App Store prices will get a new $0.29 minimum and $10,000 maximum
🪙 New minimum increments allows for more granular pricing
💰 Safeguards in place: highest 100 price points available only by request
🕊️ So it’s not likely you’ll see a $10,000 Flappy Bird
💱 Prices will be automatically set across currencies relative to local territory
A few days after publishing its list of the best iPhone apps of 2022, Apple is loosening its grip on its App Store pricing with changes to its system that will give developers more granular control over pricing – and a much broader range in which to work. Starting today for apps with auto-renewing subscriptions and in Spring 2023 for all other apps, devs can charge as little as $0.29 and as much as $10,000 for their apps. That’s up from the old minimum of $0.49 for subscriptions and $0.99 for app purchases, according to Bloomberg, and a previous App Store max of $1,000, per Ars Technica.
Pricing increments will be more flexible as well, with $0.10 price points available up to $10, $0.50 minimum increases from there to $50, and so on. Apple elucidated with this table:
Apple will also support new pricing conventions, as you can see, allowing app creators to charge outside the old standard requiring all prices to end in a nine.
There’s an App [Store price] for that
The highest prices won’t be doled out all willy nilly. The highest 100 price points – anything over $899, essentially – will only be available upon request. I’d assume Apple is attempting to attract more industrial and business app developers with the new maximum. Apps like AutoCAD, for instance, charge multiple thousands of dollars for the use of the software, and often that license expires after just a few years.
With the iPad Pro’s power being so hard to justify, Apple attracting more high-grade professional developers could solidify the tablet’s place as a serious computing device. In short, you probably won’t see special editions of Flappy Bird or Fruit Ninja sold for $10,000.
A more serious iPad could also mean a more attractive platform for video games. Maybe then we won’t have to worry so much about obsessing over each and every PS5 restock.
Other updates to the App Store will make it easier for developers to set pricing across all 45 currencies and 175 store fronts currently supported by Apple’s digital marketplace. Now, prices can be set relative to a local territory price; developers will need only to choose a price in the region they’re most familiar with, and Apple will handle taxes and pricing across the rest of the app store, with pricing changing to keep up with exchange rates.