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Freemium wins: the average in-app purchase is worth $14

By on July 26, 2011

Regular readers will know that I am a great believer in the free-to-play model, the future of games (and possibly all media) is about satisfying the power-users and superfans (otherwise known as whales) and the anyone pursuing a Lite+Premium strategy is leaving enormous amounts of money on the table.

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Flurry has just released some staggering statistics that confirm that this is true. In particular, they say that the average transaction value for an iOS or Android purchase is $14.

I’ll repeat that: average IAP spend on iOS and Android is $14.

That’s 14x the revenue that most developers get with a Lite + Premium strategy, and is based on an analysis of how 3.5 million consumers spend their money in games.

if you are still making games where the maximum revenue you can make from a single customer is $0.99 (or even $1.99), I’d stop right now. You are wasting your time and effort.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com