Starting on October 5th, the price adjustments will be in effect.
Apple has said it wants to raise the prices of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS apps, in-app purchases, and app subscriptions in Europe and several other places. The change in pricing is seen as a good thing for developers by Apple because it will help keep the prices of apps around the world even as currencies change.
Apple’s website has a news post for developers that says prices will go up in countries that use the Euro and in Chile, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, and Vietnam, among others.
Because of this, app prices in Europe are expected to go up by about 20%. This means that apps that cost €0.99 will go up to around €1.19. You might be able to handle that, but the price increase is felt much more when you buy something more expensive. An app that costs €19.99 is likely to cost around €23.99.
Apple says the move could happen “as early as October 5, 2022,” though the exact date has not yet been confirmed. That gives people in the affected areas a few more days to buy any paid apps they want before the new pricing and tax rules take effect.
Apple has changed prices like this before. In January 2017, when the value of the British Pound dropped after Brexit, the company raised the prices of apps and games in the UK by a huge 25%.
It can also happen with hardware, with the iPhone 14 being the most recent example. The smartphone starts at $799 in the US, the same price as its predecessor. But the price has gone up a lot in other places. The iPhone 14 starts at £849 in the UK, which is £70 more than the iPhone 13, while the iPhone 14 Pro is now a whopping £150 more expensive.
The only good news is that Apple tends to lower prices when a currency gets stronger, so if the Euro starts to get stronger, these price changes should be reversed.
Apple’s In-App Purchase Price: The Main Reason
A new report explains why the prices of Apple’s in-app purchases suddenly went up.
Unlike what we knew, prices have increased, with iOS seeing a huge 40% increase. And compared to 2021, this is a big jump.
But because every cause has an impact, Apple’s app tracking transparency is to fault in this instance. The new policy makes it much more expensive to reach the people who need to be reached.
The same information is now in a new report, and it’s great to see that inflation isn’t being blamed as usual. Apptopia is the source of this news.
They explained how the new price hike was seen a long time ago before inflation caused much damage worldwide in 2022. This is why, for example, prices on the Google Play Store went up by almost 9% year-over-year in July.
Similarly, the report says that this increase may be because publishers have spoken out about how they’ve dealt with a rising per install since Apple’s ATT policy went into effect. Remember that Apple has made getting users on board harder and more expensive.
On the other side, the survey mentioned how prices in the App Store compared to the Google Play Store had climbed significantly. And that’s the key reason why researchers decided it was time to thoroughly investigate whether or not all in-app purchases were impacted similarly.
And it came to light that this isn’t the case. Compared to IAPs that happens once a month or yearly, only single IAPs went up by a huge amount.
In the same way, there was a lot of talk about how the average price of IAPs for a single purchase went up by 36% in July but only went up by 19% for purchases made monthly or yearly.
So it’s clear publishers want a piece of the money they’re losing. They want to keep customers for a long time while lowering the cost of getting new customers.
But it’s very interesting to see how the tech giant’s App Tracking Transparency policy hurts developers and other companies.
Apple’s policy with ATT
Not too long ago, we saw that Meta put out a quarterly report in which they said their sales had dropped by a huge amount. Then, in July, the company went into detail about how many American companies were having trouble, and there were worries that the economy would go into recession.
On the other hand, analysts from the Wall Street Journal said that TikTok’s real worries for the future were its competitors and the changes that Apple wants to make right now.
In April, a shocking report said that Apple’s ATT policy could cause big tech companies to lose nearly $16 billion in revenue.
The ATT has made apps ask different users for permission before they can track them through apps or web pages. When you open your Facebook app, and it asks for permission to track you for advertising purposes, that’s the perfect example. You can say no or yes, but most people would rather say no than say yes, for obvious reasons.
We don’t know if the costs of in-app purchases on iOS will go up or down, but developers who want to grow need to think outside the box.