Today there are 90% of millions of applications that are leading the app store and are free to download. Free apps bring a vast market to drive $71 billion in revenue each year. These cost-free applications are the main factors that make them popular among users. The free apps offer high-quality features and other seamless user interfaces. Free applications are more popular than paid applications. 

But here, the question is how free apps make money for businesses. In this digitalization time, creating an online presence while listing your existing platform online becomes essential. Along with creating their mobile application. This article is for all entrepreneurs and start-ups who need to learn about:

• How to create a mobile app?
• Things to keep in mind while developing an application
• How to monetize an app?

Free apps are booming in the market, and paid apps reduce to 40% from 75%. The Free Apps and Paid Apps download statistics show Global App Revenue predicted between 2016 to 2020. 

The report by Statista says 95% of the Android Apps are available for free, and only 5% of them are paid one on Google Play Store. It proves that free iOS and Android markets are bringing new opportunities to the market.

Check Mistakes to Avoid When Developing A Mobile App.

Before moving on with understanding monetization methods, here is the statistic that shows the most-used mobile app monetization model of mobile developers.

Free Mobile App Monetization Strategies

Now that we have understood the popularity of free apps let’s dive into strategies that help you make money without explicit earning from users. 

1) What is the Best App Monetization Strategies?

Advertising is one of the best mobile app monetization strategies. It allows users to download apps for free. But there are times when users occasionally have to watch short videos or display ads. The ads added to your page aren’t disruptive, and so the user does not experience any inconvenience. 

A few types of ads available in the market are:

• Banner Ads: These are the ads that you can see on the top and bottom of the mobile phone. This kind of ads gives lower engagement compared to other ads. 
• Video Ads: The video starts to play during pauses. We can call it a rewarded ad where users get extra points for watching them. 
• Native Ads: These native ads are used for brand promoting where the ads naturally incorporate into the application. 
• Interstitial Ads: It’s a full-screen ad that pops up when the app is closed or opened. 

If you want to create a feature-based PWA web app, then develop an understanding of this excellent article. 

2) How Free Apps Make Money Without Ads?

For any start-up, the user may find it challenging to understand the concept of making a profit from free apps. Especially if you aren’t using ads to earn from it, let’s dive in to understand a few monetization tips.

• In-App Purchases: Users can only access a few features after the payment is done. This method is used mostly in the gaming app, where players are using it to win and earn a bonus. 
• Affiliated Marketing: The user will be able to get information only after precise clicks and downloads. The design of an app used for promoting businesses. 
• Crowdfunding: It’s for those who need funds to develop or improve current application features; they can turn on Crowdfunding. People out there will donate the sum of money through different platforms (Crowdfunder or Kickstarter)
• Sponsorship: It’s for an app that is popular in a specific niche. One can contact that person to have sponsorship to work by setting an agreement on how to manage it. 
• Sell Database: The data (Email and Phone Numbers) of users are critical. So, to expand businesses, companies are targeting the audience who are interested in buying these data. These strategies are tricky, where you need to inform users before information is sold. 

Summarize the approach to Build an App with Native App Development.

Mobile Marketing Automation

The time has come when you need to use a multi-channel messaging application that offers a paid conversion in your app. Some of the conversion examples are:

• Encourage users to purchase the product or a service
• Persuade users to book a travel flight, hotel, or activity in a travel app
• Alert users to buy new content like music albums from the music app

You need to convince users to spend money inside your app, along with using mobile marketing automation. Coordinate with push notifications, in-app messages, and another app inbox to create an integrated campaign. 

3) Common App Monetization Models

• Paid Model: Here, any application that downloads a paid one. A one-time payment fee is charged to enjoy all features without making the following purchases. 
• Paymium: The user needs to pay for the application if you wants to download it along with a few in-built features which are payable. The user is fee-based to avoid watching ads. 
• Subscription: Netflix stands first when we talk about the subscription model. The mobile app monetization allows users to run a concept where the user has to subscribe and provide a fixed payment for a month or yearly. 
• Freemium: This model allows users to download the app for free. It offers basic features for free and other premium features chargeable. Tinder is one of these models. 
• Free Model: Instagram is one of the best examples which is available for free, and no extra features are required to use this application. Nowadays, popular companies are targeting audiences, self-promoting, and making ads using this app. 

Hire a mobile app development company to accomplish your business goal and develop an engaging mobile app. 

Combine Multiple Monetization Methods

To earn more profit from the free app, you can combine various monetization methods. One strategy used here is getting the game item in exchange for watching the video. The longer the video, the more you earn. Video ads tend to convert at a higher rate than dull text ads. 

4) Explain the App Monetization Platform 

An app Monetization platform is a website that offers the best program solution for applications to get the most from in-app advertising. The platform chooses the highest bid for your app by bringing maximum revenue. Today, you have different platforms that provide all services. Here’s the list:

• Audience Network by Facebook

One of the best ways to promote is through services and businesses to reach your target audience. The website will cover native ads, rewarded ads, standard display ads, and in-stream ads. 

• Unity Ads

This Unity Ads platform offers the best to integrate video ads into publishers’ games. The company offers maximum revenue for any rewarded video. 

• Media.Net

It’s one of the best alternatives to AdSense as the publisher can access display, contextual, and native ads through their network. 

Read Also: Mobile App Development Checklist

How To Start Monetizing?

Invest in free app development if you have an excellent app idea that will give you incredible profit. You need to use unique marketing strategies before implementing and launching the application. Well, there are a lot of things going on behind the scene and inside the free app. It doesn’t mean that it’s free so you cannot make money from it. In the end, you need to keep a note of how your free app can impact the app marketplace and get a robust marketing campaign. Without this, your app won’t hit the market hard. It would be best if you didn’t miss the ultimate guide to mobile app development to penetrate a cut-throat market. 

Additional App Monetization Tips

• With a vast number of apps bursting into the market, you need to make your service profitable.
• The first thing is to make your application fun and engaging.
• Make sure the application suits your audience well
• The more the user hooked, the better you expand your audience 
• Bugfix and update the application
• Add additional features and keep your user interested in your product
• Make sure each user enjoys your app service without facing any issues.

All in All, to keep within the market, you need to beat the competitors. The monetization process isn’t as complicated, as it looks Before launching the app, you need to take care of models of monetization and strategies to get the best out of your product. 

Related Articles: 

• How Do Free Apps Make Money: 10 Apps Monetizing Tips