Subscription-Based Apps: Right choice to ensure longevity of your apps

Apps market is booming at the moment. Head to the Play Store and you will find countless Subscription-based mobile apps available for the users. However, as it comes to the story of customers liking mobile apps, it is not similar each time. Often it happens even after customer download a mobile app that is free to install, they end up uninstalling it sometime later if they find it boring. In fact, this story gets repeated so many times over a month or so.

Despite the fact that markets are saturated, there are a myriad of apps that still have a short-shelf life. This way, even after you have spent thousands of dollars in the app making process, the price window to earn on that app is too small. Most number of app developers who offer their mobile apps for free, are trying to survive alone on the advertisements. Hence, there is no denying that sustainable models are what’s needed at the moment.

After all, to make a mobile app successful and generate revenue, longer user engagement is essential. The apps are required to stay on users devices for long-time so for them to turn lucrative for the app publishers. This is only possible via Subscription business model. Instead of charging one-time fee, app publishers & developers are now shifting towards charging a recurring fee from their app users.

Subscription business models all the way

Be it Netflix, Prime Video, or Spotify, many of other prominent apps are using subscription-based business models, in fact we will soon see subscription models paving their way into gaming. Also, fitness, health & lifestyle apps are turning towards subscriptions. After all, why not? Subscriptions, indeed, are a new sustainable way to generate revenue.

Now the real struggle is to make your users, who are satisfied with your free version, pay for the monthly subscriptions? For that it would be required on your part to use a few strategies we have discussed below.

How to make your free version user convert to subscription business models?

Now as per a research, major percentage of the subscribers begin with the app’s free version, and later on only they choose to subscribe upon liking the app and being allured by the premium features. Now to ensure that your free users turn to subscribed ones, it is important to offer great content in subscribed version and you should be doing it consistently. After all content is the king and it drives conversions. It is also important to be offering interesting discounts on subscribed version. That is certain to get you many conversions.

Using campaigns to tell your users that subscribed version of the app is ad-free can also be a dominant factor for conversions, as ads are often a big irritant to certain users. Offering additional features and tools is also a brilliant idea to enthral the users. Last but not the least ensure that you don’t offer your app’s free version on different devices to the users, as when the app is limited to use on a single device, the strategy can later be used to boost conversions. Upon subscribing, users would be able to use your app on many devices and sync it too.

Once you have informed your app users about all these benefits they would miss out on by not subscribing, the conversions are certain to increase.

Why developers love subscription-based models?

Owing to the many amazing benefits offered by subscription-based apps, app developers tend to deviate towards them as well. The major reasons why developers love subscribed versions are:

Awesome Revenue: 

Subscription-based apps offer additional app store revenue, however the financial benefit is not just limited to that, as such apps also experience higher revenue on each user as compared to apps that work on other business models. A study has shown that subscription-based mobile apps earns twice-three more on each user as compared to apps relying on pay-to-download or advertising model. These apps also tend to earn around 50 percent more than the app that rely on in-app purchases for the revenue.

Reliable Income: 

These apps pave a way for the developers for reliable income that comes monthly/quarterly/yearly, as per the package subscribed by the app user. Other revenue models lack this. Developers or publishers can be stress-free upon knowing how much revenue they earn per user and being assured that the cash flow will be growing with each additional new app user acquired.

This way the publishers/developers will be able to put greater efforts in app marketing as well and they can plan major feature upgrades. After all reliable income has its own benefits, isn’t it?

More Engaged Audience: 

By going with subscription business models, you are certain to get more engaged users and everyone knows how vital it is to maintain app engagement. Here users tend to be more invested in the app as they want to get most out of the app they are paying for. This certainly results in more engaged audience. Now it is on the part of app developers and publishers to foster this engagement and ensure that users fee interested and rewarded each time they engage with your mobile app. Because if user feel that your app is not value for money, then they will soon unsubscribe.

What kind of apps are apt for Subscribed model?

Even though most kind of apps can give a shot to subscription model, but a certain types of mobile apps that would best suit this are:

·    Content Apps: Newspaper & magazines are the apt example that recurring subscriptions in the exchange of fresh content is a successful business strategy. In today’s times, this also works for the digital content, be it music, video content or news articles.

·     Service Apps: Subscription models can work wonders for the service app category and this category tend to be huge entailing wide range of apps, from social scheduling to digital storage. For instance, we have service apps like LastPass, Evernote and Todoist that work wonders. However, here the app must offer regular updates to enamour the users.

What apps might not be suitable for Subscription model?

Well, there are a few kinds of apps that might not succeed in cashing into the benefits of subscription model, like:

·   Single-purpose Apps: These are the apps that are designed for small or specific solutions, hence it won’t make much sense for them to ask for recurring monthly payments. Such as, dictionary, calculator, and alarm clock apps.

·     Online Shopping Apps: Here the users are already paying to purchase products, and it won’t make much sense of you asking them to pay recurring monthly fee, unless the fee offers free shipping, coupons, bonuses, loyalty points, or additional discounts.

Subscription-based apps offer a reliable and powerful revenue stream that attracts many app developers, however, as you choose the model, make sure that you are offering amazing new features and fresh content constantly to your users, so to make the model work wonders for you.

About the authors -

Kanika Behl is a professional and well-experienced Digital Marketing Expert, blogger, writer, Youtuber etc  with 5 years experience of working in the information technology services industry. who has the capability to write articles and blogs on technology, lifestyle, and business.
Website:- https://www.octalsoftware.com/ 

Email id:- octalkanika@gmail.com