Revenue Models for Android Apps

There are many people making Android Apps and dumping them in the market and praying to get sales/traffic, but you don’t have to anymore, as this article will cover an exhaustive list of ways in which you can make money with your Android Apps.

Most commonly the models which comes to mind are

1. Paid App
2. Freemium Model
3. Ad based free Apps

If all three comes in a category of selling the App to ‘individual’ which is worst of all the models as it requires lot of effort in marketing and managing. We found many other Apps using many more models which we will try to cover and which will give you a foundation on which you can build more yourself. 

1. Build the App to Sell

Now the question should be ‘whom to sell the App to?’ No individuals are not the only options.

Sell the App to

1. Individuals – Put a price tag on your App in App markets and let people buy in from App stores
2. Enterprise – Make Apps suitable for the businesses and sell to them. Many big players buy licenses and softwares and Apps for making their product more marketable.
3. Schools and Institutions – create softwares and Apps suitable for students or school/college administrators and partner with them.
4. OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer – Hard-code your App in the devices or in the firmware. It will be a dream come true for any App developer.
5. Content Providers – Make a template app (universal one with all the important funtionality) and customize the app for each content provider and license it.

2. Build the App to give away for Free

This is the Free and Freemium Model in which you give the product for free and make money by selling something else. The statistics suggest that free apps get many more downloads than the paid ones.

What to Sell, other than App?

1. Customization – Basic app is free, Sell the stuff that make their experience better with the App.
2. Account – User need to have a paid account to use the App
3. Content – Music Player may be free but sell the music Albums through your App. Can apply to news media also.
4. Plugins –  Give away the camera app, sell the image processing plug-ins for example
5. Advertisement – Banner ads from AdMob or other service provider.This adds a dependency on third-party ad code, and in turn a dependency on an Internet connection.
6. Virtual currency and goods – For examples games that sells virtual stuff on their App and charges for unlocking levels of personalization.
7. Subscription – This allows you to have a regular monthly/yearly cash-flow.
8. Analytics – If App is Finance manager, you can sell the information about the list of popular banks and investments.

3. Build App for Developers

This is a  classic model of “selling pickaxes to gold miners” where you sell tools to help software developers develop software.

Sell to Developers

1. Development Tools – like GUI builders, XML based resources, Libraries, directories etc.
2. Portability tool kits and support framework – web-kit for cross-platform portability and on-device help resources.
3. App testing service or a device based virtual testing –  unlike iPhone, android will have wide range of devices.
4. Language translation service – to make any app accepted globally
5. App Promoter – if you have become expert at marketing App then you can sell your skill as a service to those who have no marketing skills
6. Become a Trainer – There is a demand for people who can train these skills.
7. Write a Book on Android 🙂

There may be many other way which may not be presented here, Mark Murphy has done an amazing job here from where we have curated it.  This post cover the innovative ways in which you can make revenues but not the innovative way of making an App. So its ultimately about building great App which people likes.

Suggested Read

1. 5-revenue-model-for-internet-startups
2. 10-revenue-models-for-social-media-startups
3. Guerrilla-marketing-for-internet