Pricing your first subscription without guessing
Start from what a user is worth, not what competitors charge. A simple way to set a first price and when to change it.
Your first price will be wrong. That’s fine. The goal is to be wrong in a direction you can learn from, and to know when to change it.
Start from value, then check the market
Ask what your app replaces. A coach, a notebook, a spreadsheet, another app, an hour of someone’s time each week. That gives you a ceiling. Then look at what similar apps charge. That gives you a range. Set your first price inside the range and closer to the ceiling than feels comfortable.
Raising prices later is harder than lowering them, and early users are usually your most motivated users.
Two plans to start
- A yearly plan as the default, shown as a monthly equivalent.
- A monthly plan for people who want to try before committing.
Skip lifetime plans until you know your renewal rates. They trade future revenue for cash today, and they’re hard to take back.
Prices by country
App stores let you set prices by country. Use it. A price that feels small in one country can be a large share of a weekly budget in another. Start with the stores’ suggested local prices and adjust the countries where you get the most installs.
When to change it
Change the price when you have enough paywall views to measure paying users per 100 paywall views for a full week at each price. Change one thing at a time, keep existing subscribers on their current price, and look at refunds and first-month cancellations before you decide.
You’re not guessing a price. You’re choosing the first experiment.
Try this week: write down what your app replaces and what that costs your user today. If your price is a small fraction of that, you have room to test higher.