You see an app the interests you either through the logo, description, title or screenshot and you see it costs $2. How bad do you want it? bad enough to pay straight up and use it? Or lets say that app is free to download but there is a small bit of text that says “Offers in-app purchases”.

You’re going to skim over the little text and get excited to use the new app as soon as its finished downloading and installing. Upon opening the app you will find that features, extras and ad removal are through paying money. Welcome to the new world where IAP’s (in-app purchases) rule and are the best method to increase app downloads.

Take this excellent article from the 7 minute workout app creator. It explains a lot from design, pricing and promotion of the app. However what got my attention most was when the app got switched to being free with an IAP.

The massive growth came from the app being switched to free to download. 3 days saw an average of 72,000 downloads per day compared to 28 when it wasn’t free.

Free app is more attractive

Of course this is just the introductory growth stage for the app. Once it gets initial impressions it blew up the app still had to engage and keep its users. Offer value with IAP’s and be a better alternative than competitors. Switching the app to free didn’t just have continued success. It dropped down but it gave the 7 minute workouts app a base to build from. All good services, apps and ideas need a good base to push-off from.

Make the app free, limited and full of ads

More sales = profits to put towards expansion, optimization and in most cases marketing. Understandably the app got 2.3 million downloads and an acquisition without any money spent on marketing.

Today on the app store many apps take the IAP approach making the app very accessible to kids and to gain “testing” users. An app with limited features, ads and IAP will be better of than a full featured app that costs money to download and use.