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tinrocket

33 karma · joined April 7, 2013

I am a software developer and designer.
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tinrocket··on Popsicolor 1.0—By the Numbers
$4.99 would be to high. That price range is right for apps like Snapseed (pre Google aquisition) that are billed as serious photo editors (tools in genreral can command a higher price.)

When you are at that price range, it also helps to have a lot of big published reviews behind it so customers can evaluate the purchase more easily. Popsicolor doesn't have any of those, and probably won't receive any, because it doesn't solve a particular problems other than being fun unto itself.

tinrocket··on Popsicolor 1.0—By the Numbers
Oh, I see. :) A year ago I tried an experiment with one of my other apps at $2.99 and there was some review backlash. Perhaps it's worth testing the waters every once in a while. My general strategy has been to price to keep the rankings up (for discoverability) and keep the price where it won't be a factor in user reviews.
tinrocket··on Popsicolor 1.0—By the Numbers
Yes, that will be a future post. Quite honestly it took a lot out of me and only now can I go back and revisit some of it. You will hear all about how my friends and family had to get food for me because I couldn't leave the computer. :)
tinrocket··on Popsicolor 1.0—By the Numbers
That is smart! I will add some before and after comparisons to the site for the next update.
tinrocket··on Popsicolor 1.0—By the Numbers
Thanks, $.99 was right for 1.0, but I feel that changing the price to $1.99 for version 2.0 was correct:

-A lot of work went into the update and I will continue to offer free updates for as long as I can afford to. The price went up for new users to reflect the effort put into the new version, and also to reward people who bought 1.0 on the faith that there would be future updates.

-Although there is a novelty aspect to the processing, I do my own computer graphics research and take it seriously. Doing my own R&D is more time consuming than adapting other people's research. As a bonus, using original research is the best way to stay unique—and valuable. :)

-Raising the price to $1.99 is an intentional strategy to curb impulse buys and by consequence, bad customer reviews because of misunderstandings. With my previous app, I raised the price and the quality of reviews went up. I believe that the price increase makes people do a double-check before hitting Buy. I would much rather have a few happy customers than a lot of disgruntled ones. :)

-I rarely put my apps on sale, but when I do, I can go down to $.99 from $1.99, which I can't do if the app was $.99 all the time. I want to make sure that I'm always in the charts—my apps have been holding their own for months around position 100 in the photo category. I would only consider a sale if they dropped below the top 200.

tinrocket··on Popsicolor 1.0—By the Numbers
Version 2 was a free update for 1.x users, as opposed to being released as a new app, as some developers choose to release major updates as.
tinrocket··on Popsicolor 1.0—By the Numbers
Thanks, and nope. :) (See my full response in the post’s comment section.)