Contingent pricing for in-app subscriptions creates a new way to retain and attract customers by providing discounted subscription prices to those actively subscribed to a different subscription. It’s especially interesting because it allows you to pair up with another developer’s subscription and create a cross-app bundle offering.
Apple announced contingent pricing in December 2023 and has onboarded several developers while piloting this feature. I’m happy to announce that I’m one of those developers, joining forces with Pol Piella and Hidde van der Ploeg to offer you contingent pricing for Helm and RocketSim. More about that later in this article, let’s first explain what contingent pricing is about.
What is Contingent Pricing?
Contingent pricing helps you attract and retain subscribers by allowing you to offer a discounted subscription price as long as users are actively subscribed to another subscription. It can be used for subscriptions from one developer or two developers. In other words, you can cross-promote your personal apps or work together with an app from another developer.
For example, I’m the developer behind RocketSim, and I joined forces with Helm, an app from another developer account. You’ll get a 30% discount on RocketSim if you’re subscribed to a yearly Helm subscription and vice versa. If you can’t wait:
- Use this link to get a 30% discount on RocketSim if you’re already subscribed to Helm
- Use this link to get a 30% discount on Helm if you’re already subscribed to RocketSim
How can I sign up for Contingent pricing?
Apple is still piloting this feature, allowing you to sign up using this online form. You’ll be required to define your contingent pricing proposition:
- The subscription that defines the eligibility (trunk app)
- The subscription available at a discounted price (branch app)
- The discounted price point or percentage
- The subscription levels
For example: “RocketSim Pro Yearly subscribers get Helm Yearly for $34.99/year”.
What happens if a user cancels one of the subscriptions?
In the scenario of a user buying RocketSim Pro with contingent pricing, they will only continue to pay a discounted price as long as they’re actively subscribed to Helm Yearly. Users will pay the full price for RocketSim when they cancel their Helm subscription. Therefore, contingent pricing could be a great way to improve churn rates.
How can a customer discover these pricing discounts?
Customers can discover contingent pricing discounts within your app, off-platform marketing channels, and in the App Store. For example, I’m able to subscribe to One Sec Pro with a special offer since I’m already subscribed to Structured:
In-app, you can determine eligibility and show a custom promotion banner accordingly. Within RocketSim, I’m promoting the Helm discounted offering inside the welcome view:
Lastly, as I did in the first paragraph of this article, you can promote the offering online through preferred marketing channels using the given universal links. However, you won’t be able to determine eligibility, which means users might end up on a screen like this:
Does it support macOS?
You can tell from the previous screenshot that you can use contingent pricing on macOS. However, the current macOS App Store does not provide any marketing channels to help you promote the discounted offering to eligible customers. Therefore, you’ll have to do the promotion yourself if you’re building for macOS.
Helm – The Industry Standard Native Application for App Store Connect
As you might know, I open-sourced an SDK for the App Store Connect API a while ago. I started this library with the idea of once building a native App Store Connect client. However, I never did so, and I was delighted to see Helm taking this responsibility. Honestly, I couldn’t have done a better job, and I’m super impressed by the quality of this app.
Helm allows you to manage metadata, reply to customer reviews, submit and release apps, and more from within a native application. The App Store Connect website is slow and requires a lot of clicks before you finish your task, while Helm’s is quite the opposite. It’s faster in its base but also comes with several intelligent AI solutions to perform everyday tasks faster.
Therefore, I couldn’t be more excited to announce our partnership. With RocketSim and Helm, you’ll have two essential developer tools that save you time, increase your productivity, and allow you to spent more time on building new features for your apps.
RocketSim Pro yearly subscribers get a 30% discount on Helm thanks to contingent pricing on the App Store.
You can install the latest version of RocketSim or Helm and activate the discount in-app or use one of these links:
- Use this link to get a 30% discount on RocketSim if you’re already subscribed to Helm
- Use this link to get a 30% discount on Helm if you’re already subscribed to RocketSim
Conclusion
Contingent pricing for in-app subscriptions creates a new way to retain and attract customers with discounted offerings. It has a positive effect on churn rates, and users will enjoy a discounted price as long as they’re actively subscribed to another subscription.
This article only contained a blip of what you can do to optimize your app’s financial offerings. If you’re excited to learn more, especially how to apply these techniques on personal side projects, I invite you to follow my course, From Side Project to Going Indie. We’ll cover related topics like:
- The Flywheel Concept: Reinvesting for Growth
- App Monetization Techniques: Strategies to optimize products for income
- Building and Nurturing Your Audience
And much more. I’d be honored to help you grow your side projects and income.
Thanks!