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I'm looking into monetizing my first app with a free and a paid version. It seems that the simplest approach would be to use an in-app purchase to unlock extra features. However, I'd also like the customer to have the option to purchase the full version outright on the Play Store (more visibility that way). I could publish a "pro key" app as an upgrade key, but then they'd have to install 2 packages and it seems like a hassle. On the other hand, I don't want to have to support two independently complete packages (one free, one paid).

So I'm not sure what approach to take. I want to let users upgrade from within the app because that would be simplest, but I also want a the customer to be able to buy and install the paid version straight from the store. Thoughts?

Bill the Lizard
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NSouth
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  • I personally have 2 different apps. The free one, and the pro key version with more features. Just make it evident to the person who is buying the pro version that it is the pro version like changing the Icon around a little, that's what I have done and it's working perfectly :) – Jack Aug 29 '14 at 16:55
  • @Jack, is it not troublesome to maintain 2 apps? Do they have different workspaces? – NSouth Aug 29 '14 at 16:59
  • Yes it is, because of this, I would not recommend it. – Jack Aug 29 '14 at 17:57
  • This question appears to be off-topic because it is about app store policies, not programming. – Bill the Lizard Dec 19 '14 at 23:10

2 Answers2

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No. Free and paid apps are handled completely differently on the market.

r2DoesInc
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I see three solutions.

  1. Add In-app purchase
  2. Add new app "Your app name pro unlocker"
  3. Add new pro version of you app

I think that the first one is the most reliable and easy to achieve. It is harder to crack by pirates too. Pirates can upload your app to their sited but when user will download it he will get normal free version. Of course anything can be hacked ;-) but... it is better than 3rd option (see below).

Second one - in you main app you need to check if "pro unlocker" is installed, maybe you will need to check if certificates are the same and run, custom implemented, android service in this to check if use is allowed to use pro version. It is quite ok and beacuse you will use a quite lot of custom coding it should be safe.

Third - using Grandle you can simply create second version of your app, during building Grandle will create pro/free version automatically. However pro versions which are using Google Licensing are easy to crack by pirates so...

To sum up - you have 3 three solutions. I think that the first one is good enough and it is not requiring too much code or time for maintaining. I hope that this will help you ;-)

Cheers

radzio
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  • I think you sum it up pretty well. Yes, the in-app purchase seems like the way to go. It's simple and logical. If I find I really want the extra visibility of having two versions on the store, I'll look into that. I doubt anyone will want to hack my little app, but that's a good point. Thanks! – NSouth Aug 29 '14 at 19:55