Mac App Store: Race to the bottom? Not even close.

By on September 5th, 2011 in Mac Comments (2)

When the Mac App Store was first announced, pundits worldwide declared that the sky would fall, Mac app prices would race to the bottom, and that Mac developers were doomed.

Now that we’re 9 months in, let’s take a look at some of the Mac App Store’s most successful (or at least top grossing) apps and their prices:

Are these bargain bin prices? Nope.

While some app prices may have dropped relative to their pre-Mac App Store levels, it’s pretty clear that you can successfully offer a Mac app at a $30-$80 price point, and still do quite well in the app store. I would suspect that any loss caused by the lowered price is massively offset by the increase in visibility that the Mac App Store provides (example: see Pixelmator’s 1M in 20 days).

Either way, it’s most definitely not the race to the bottom that people claimed would occur.

Interestingly, there is also a strong contingent of apps doing quite well at the $9.99 price point:

Aside from Sparrow, these seem to be mostly apps that originated on the iOS platform and made their way over to the Mac.

Instead of forcing high quality apps to lower their prices to compete, the Mac App Store seems to have elevated the visibility of lower priced apps in the marketplace. You can see a handful of $0.99 and $4.99 apps in the top grossing chart, but the vast majority of them are above the $10-20 range. Now, $0.99 apps are sitting next to their more expensive brethren but both have been given a chance to succeed.

Based on our own experience releasing Paprika for Mac last month, I can definitely say that the Mac App Store is alive and well. The sky is has not fallen, prices have not been driven to the bottom, and Mac customers have demonstrated that they are willing to pay a premium for high quality software1.

1. Which if you think about it, is not so surprising, considering they’ve already demonstrated a willingness to pay a premium for high quality hardware.

  • Chase

    Paprika is by far the best purchase I have ever made on the Mac AppStore.  Being able to plan out meals weeks ahead of time and generate a grocery list makes eating healthier all the more easier.  The interface is beautiful and downloading recipes is as easy as visiting a website and clicking a button.  Thanks for an awesome app, guys :)

  • http://www.stevenwei.com/ Steven Wei

    Hi Chase,

    Thanks for the high praise, and you’re very welcome! :)