How to Monetize your Mobile App in 2021

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It’s one thing to have a  unique idea for a new app and making that app as amazing as possible outfitted with the best possible features. It’s another thing to turn the idea into something profitable. Many people create an app but do not have any idea about the money-making aspect of their apps, so they cannot see a return on their investment.

There are many different ways to monetize your app. Whether you use an app development software or hire an agency to do it for you, you can easily monetize your app.

Here are some of the different ways which you can use to make money with your app

Advertising

Ads are the most common and easiest way to make money from the apps that you’ve developed. And it is also implemented via a third party network. 

As per some of the latest reports from Statista, in the year 2019 alone, 190 billion US dollars were spent on mobile advertising. It is very simple to make money with ads. As an app owner, you just need to display commercial ads inside your app or opt for affiliate marketing and get paid from third party ad networks. 

You can get paid every time an ad is shown, every time a user clicks on the ad, and when a user installs the advertised app. If you have a free version, you can also run campaigns to generate ad revenue for specific periods.

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Subscription

Subscriptions are also a way to go if you don’t want to spam your users with ads. As an app developer, you can choose whether you want users to access your platform for free or want them to pay a periodic subscription fee. With a subscription, the users will be able to access the content fully without any restrictions. 

Many developers offer a trial period duration where the user can access all the content without any restriction. Once the trial period is over, the user then has to pay the subscription fees if they want to access the content anymore. 

This strategy is often used by the majority of cloud services, video, and audio streaming services. 

Selling Merchandise

Another way to approach making money from your app is by selling merchandise in the app. 

Many e-commerce businesses are looking to sell their physical goods such as toys, shirts, shows, etc. these physical products are sold using apps or direct email marketing. 

To encourage more app publishers to use this strategy, Amazon has started a merch by Amazon. The platform allows publishers to create artwork and upload it to their platform, and they can later promote their products. It is a good strategy that benefits both the owners and app users. 

Sponsorship

Sponsorship is less used nowadays for monetization, but it can still be an interesting strategy. Sponsorship in your mobile application can be a powerful strategy for monetization if you have the right app in the right niche for a targeted audience and launch it on behalf of another company.

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Much like websites, publishers also need to consider sponsors who have the same target customer base as the app addressed. So, before you start building the app, create a list of organizations and brands that could benefit from the partnership with your app to monetize your app later on. 

Sponsorship is a very lucrative monetization model, but it works if your mobile app has quite a lot of users, and needless to say, it is difficult to find a sponsor that can offer sponsorship for your app.

In-app purchases

Sometimes purchases are made directly within the free mobile apps. They are typically used to access certain content or unlock some features, such as restrictive or additional features in an app.

Gaming apps can mostly be leveraged in-app purchase methodically for virtual coins or level upgrades. For example, users playing a mobile game app could spend money to unlock a new vehicle, map, weapon, or something along those lines.

According to video game stats, Pokemon Go generated more than 3 billion dollars in revenue as a free app. The app has been downloaded roughly 1 billion times, but it makes money by in-app purchases since the app is free. The app sells PokeCoins in virtual currency that can be used to pay for the upgrades within the app.

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Product extensions

Product extension falls into the indirect monetization category. This is a great way to generate revenue for your product service or business, but the money is directly tied to actions taken within the app itself.

For example, a product like QuickBooks is online accounting software used by 7 million customers worldwide; the platform controls more than 50% of the accounting category’s software market share

Quickbooks is a paid software, but anyone who buys the software for their PC or laptop can use it on IOS and Android mobile apps for free.

The app itself doesn’t generate any revenue; its access is included if you sign up for a QuickBooks subscription. However, people love apps, and being able to accept software from anywhere in your mobile adds value to the product. 

Conclusion

With so many app monetization methods, it can be difficult to choose from, but there is no single right answer to this. You’ll have to weigh each and every option carefully.

It sometimes depends on industries and apps to determine what monetization method to use for many apps. In-app purchases would be an obvious model, but for a certain app like E-Commerce apps using ads would be a great option to monetize. 

Depending on the type of your app, you could experiment with different monetization models. you can track the data like user engagement and other valuable keep eyes to figure out which method will be most profitable for your app