App Store pricing: price points, country prices and scheduled changes

How does App Store pricing work?

Three ideas cover it:

1. Price points. Instead of numbered tiers, you choose from up to 800 price points. If you need more expensive prices, you can request 100 additional higher price points, up to $10,000, through Apple's request form.
2. A base country or region. You set the price once in your base storefront. Apple generates comparable prices for the other 174 storefronts and 43 currencies, following each country's usual pricing conventions and accounting for exchange rates and certain taxes.
3. Automatic or manual. By default Apple keeps the other storefronts in line with your base price and tells you in advance about changes. Apple never changes the price in your base country. If you set a country's price yourself, Apple stops adjusting it, and tax or currency changes there become your job.

Before you can charge, the Account Holder must accept the Paid Apps agreement in App Store Connect. Without it, apps can only be free.

How do I set a price, step by step?

Required role: Account Holder, Admin or App Manager.

1. In Apps, select your app.
2. In the sidebar, under Monetization, click Pricing and Availability.
3. In Price Schedule, click Add Pricing.
4. Choose the base country or region and a price. The menu first shows 25 common price points for that country; click See Additional Prices for the rest.
5. Review the generated prices for all storefronts. Leave them as they are for automatic management, or change specific countries.
6. Confirm.

You can do the same through the App Store Connect API.

How do I schedule a price change?

Open Pricing and Availability, click the add button (+) next to Price Schedule, and pick one of three change types:

Rules that catch people:

• Effective dates can be set from today up to the end of the next calendar year.
• Changing the base country deletes all scheduled price changes and takes effect immediately. In-app purchases follow the app's new base country unless you set theirs separately.
• After a Custom Price Change that includes your base country, Apple no longer updates any storefront for taxes or exchange rates. To hand control back to Apple, create a Global Price Change.
• Some upcoming changes, such as Apple's own tax or currency adjustments, cannot be deleted.

The Price Schedule marks countries you set by hand as Manually Adjusted and shows upcoming Foreign Exchange or Tax Rate Adjustments.

Automatic or manual country prices?

Automatic keeps prices consistent, avoids people hunting for a cheaper storefront and reduces mistakes, which is why Apple recommends it. Manual makes sense when you have a reason per market, for example purchasing power, but every manual country then needs watching.

A practical middle path:

1. Pick the base country where most of your revenue comes from.
2. Leave automatic pricing on.
3. Override only the few markets where you have data that a different price works better, and review them a few times a year.

How is Google Play pricing different?

Which price should I choose?

Neither store publishes conversion data by price point, so pick by your model and test. Look at what rival apps in your category charge in each country, then check your net after the store's share with App Store and Google Play commission rates. For subscriptions, introductory and promotional offers let you discount without changing the list price: see App Store subscription offers and offer codes. For choosing the model itself, see How apps make money.

How do I watch rival prices?

The Uptika Rival log records the day a competitor changes its price, title, screenshots or version, and the App dossier shows any app's listing history. The free Chart Movers tool shows daily top-grossing movement in a category and country. The Free plan tracks one app in one storefront: start free.

Questions

Sources

1. Set a price (App Store Connect Help)
2. Schedule price changes for apps (App Store Connect Help)
3. Set up paid apps and pricing (Play Console Help)