“What The Heck” Price Applied To Software And iPhone Apps

August 6th, 2009

Inspired by Jeff Atwood’s recent post and my earlier one about a “What the Heck” price, some self-analysis notes on why I buy software and at what price.

Biggest factor when it comes to software: free options abound. Even eschewing piracy, I tend to not buy software unless I really need to. There’s a lot of open source stuff that serves most of my needs (VLC, InstantShot, and TextWrangler come to mind).

If there isn’t a comparable, free alternative, I can justify paying more, for example Apple (OS X, iLife, iWork), Adobe (Creative Suite 4), Microsoft (Office), VMWare Fusion, etc.

But in terms of shareware, I admit to having a definite price threshold of about $20-$30. I’ve ponied up for iShowU and Fetch. But any higher and I lean toward locating a free program that does the same job, or just settle for freeware with less features.

iPhone Apps

Now for the iPhone App Store, things work out in a way that my “what the heck” price is even lower. Initially, one might think the App Store would justify higher prices because it’s the only place to get iPhone Apps (jailbreaking is in the minority). But, it seems my personal “what the heck” price is around $2 — $3. I’ll drop 99 cents on a whim.

I largely chalk this up to how there are a lot of quality apps for below $5 dollars and even at 99 cents (Doodle Jump, Drop7) or free. So the developers themselves lower the bar by pricing quality apps at a very low price.

But digging a little further, I’ve bought a lot more cheaper ones. Here’s a breakdown of apps I’ve reviewed:

To sum up, I’m inclined to agree with the idea that for iPhone Apps at least, you could charge less and make up the difference in terms of volume. I may have bought two expensive apps but have spent more than that amount on cheap ones.

(And it’s not really a surprise the “what the heck” price for iPhone apps is pretty close to the 99 cent price for a song purchased through iTunes. I even find myself filling up the iTunes Shopping Cart while buying tunes with apps, thinking, well, if this is going to show up as one charge, I might as well toss a few more apps on there since I’m “already here.” Just like an extra bag of chips or soda at the convenience store).

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