Apple has addressed one of the most common requests from App Store developers by offering greater flexibility in setting prices. The tech giant has added 700 new pricing tiers, resulting in a total of 900 price points for developers to choose from. The change marks the most significant update to the App Store's pricing capabilities since its inception.
In the early days of the App Store, then-CEO Steve Jobs noted that many developers, even big ones, struggled to make their apps universally accessible. Now, with a significant expansion of pricing options, developers have more control over their offerings. The new pricing system offers prices ranging from 29 cents to much higher amounts, with hundreds of new prices available upon request, including options as high as $10,000.
These newly added prices are accompanied by tools designed to manage prices by country, region, and currency, effectively giving developers greater control over their international offerings. Apple plans to provide detailed information about these new price points on its developer site.
Moreover, developers can now opt for alternative price endings, such as x.90 or x.00, allowing for better management of bundles and annual plans. This flexibility addresses the challenges developers faced while complying with various national currency conventions.
To further improve pricing management, developers of subscription-based apps can now enable automatic price generation across 174 storefronts and 44 currencies, based on a local storefront of their choice. With the ability to set prices per locale, developers can better manage currency fluctuations. This feature will be extended to all other apps in Spring 2023. Additionally, developers can now define the availability of in-app purchases by storefront, offering even more localization options.
Starting next year, Apple will let developers with paid apps or in-app purchases set local territory pricing, which will remain unaffected by the automatic price adjustments the company makes in response to changes in tax and foreign exchange rates. At present, developers can modify pricing at any time to accommodate such adjustments.
The App Store has played a crucial role in the rapid growth and evolution of the mobile app industry since its launch in 2008. While Apple's success has faced criticism, it has provided developers with numerous benefits, including tools for frictionless checkout, transparent invoicing, marketing, tax and fraud services, and refund management. With the latest enhancements, developers now have even more control over pricing strategies and can offer their products in 45 currencies throughout App Stores worldwide.
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