Apps Market: Free to Paid

[93interactive]

Hi,

anyone has experience what happens, if you change a free app to paid?

What i want to do is, change a free app to paid, but not piss off the people that got it as free version... meaning that i want them to still be able to install it.

Is this possible?

Kind regards,
Heiko

 

[jonbonazza]

Hi,

anyone has experience what happens, if you change a free app to paid?

What i want to do is, change a free app to paid, but not piss off the people that got it as free version... meaning that i want them to still be able to install it.

Is this possible?

Kind regards,
Heiko

I am not 100%, but I am pretty sure that the change will only affect those who have not downloaded it yet.

If all else fails, you could just offer a refund to those who have already downloaded it... Not sure how you would get the information of who has downloaded and who hasn't, but there has to be a way since I have seen developers do this.

 

[kevin@teslacoilsw]

The Android Market doesn't allow you to change an app from Free to Paid. You can however change a Paid app to Free, but then you can never change it back to Paid.

Also if you refund a paid app via Google Checkout the user cannot download updates. There is no way to give someone an app for free (unless you refund them via paypal or something).

The Android Market is limited

 

[93interactive]

The Android Market doesn't allow you to change an app from Free to Paid. You can however change a Paid app to Free, but then you can never change it back to Paid.

wow, i see, it was a paid app changed to free, now i can't go back, that's heavy... well... it stays free then :-/

 

[jonbonazza]

Could you not create a new keystore and then re-export the app with the new keystore? After you do that, you can unpublish the old app and re-upload the new one and make it paid. I have not tried this, but it seems like it may work. I have seen multiple copies of the same app in the android market at one time, so it's possible somehow.

 

[93interactive]

Yes i could do that, but that would force the users of the free version to buy the paid version.

Anyway, i file this under learning experience - after all i think free apps are some kind of advertising for your other stuff - although some users always seem to expect more, even if you give the best description, screenshots and even gameplay videos.

 

[JiMMaR]

I don't think this will force the users to buy the paid version
if you re-export the app as a different one , they only need to pay for it for updates

they can still use the current version, that's what they usually do , right ?
[may still get some ppl pissed , but not all I assume .. unless you told them that they'd still get the updates with the free one ]

 

[Swizz]

What is the apps name? You obviously have a large enough fan base that you are trying to avoid "pissing off", which means you must have a decent app out there.

 

[93interactive]

What is the apps name? You obviously have a large enough fan base that you are trying to avoid "pissing off", which means you must have a decent app out there.

Well, its only a very small game, nothing special, but an active installation base of 10000 users is enough not wanting me to get complaint emails from everybody - app name is SharpShooter

 

[man00va]

Just rename it SharpShooter Lite, then make a Pro version with some additional features.