How do free applications earn revenue?
By: Payal Aryamane
Tags: Patients, Hospital, Doctors, Online Appointment, Healthcare

Friday evening I was surfing on my WhatsApp. And there were few thoughts came in my mind on how do these companies recover their costs? Since they don’t even charge me a penny, how do their business even run? Leaving WhatsApp there are so many other applications like Facebook, Paytm, Zomato, etc. which are free of cost. They don’t charge for installing their application also provides free services. My these questions made me do research on how do these companies exactly work?

If any company wishes to build up its own app it would start with the initial investment made by the company, this investment would be either of their own or through some external funding. The cost involved in building the application is the server cost which is the computer program which offers services to other computer programs as well as its users. This server cost provides continuous 24*7 services to the users. Other costs like maintenance cost are the costs associated with the maintenance of any facility, equipment or asset. It includes the cost of support staff involved in problem identification and repair. It does not include the project costs associated with the development of new functionality and performance enhancement. Regular technology upgrade and operational cost i.e the expenses which relate to the operation of a business, or to the operation of a device, component, piece of equipment or facility. They are the cost of resources used by an organization to maintain its existence. If we calculate all these costs, any startup company has to invest 70 lacs to 100 lacs to incur these cost. The next question which arises is how do these companies recover these costs and run their business?

I also found out certain facts.

Using ads to monetize apps and make money is quite simple. An app owner needs to display commercials inside their mobile app and get paid from the third-party ad networks. Advertising also has many cons like the company data is being used, Misleads consumers create risky advertising approaches App publishers can choose to offer free content in their apps for a limited amount of time and then charge users for a subscription fee that will allow them to access full content without any restrictions. Many e-commerce businesses build free apps to sell physical goods such as toys, shirts, shoes, etc. these physical products can sell to the app or via email marketing. The app publishers can sell their users’ behavior data to these researchers and make a handsome amount of money. The data generally contains users’ email addresses, social media accounts, and their personal preferences. Selling data is the most threatening because of the actual data of the company is being used by some third party. When it comes to talking about freemium Upsell, freemium apps are available free of cost to download but contain paid or premium features. These paid and premium features accesses through in-app purchases. Increases audience size with no barriers to entry & no risks. It’s in safe hand because your data is not used by any person other than yourself. The best way to monetize your apps is transaction fees. It is the best way to make money from your free apps. It is especially possible with those apps that provide a platform, where digital transactions occur on a regular basis.

Let’s Talk About Future of Free Apps

As you can see from the above-mentioned statistics, the growth of the mobile app market isn’t stopping anytime soon. Despite increasing competition in the industry, publishers are also applying new Monetization methods and creating more useful free apps for users.

Coming on to a conclusion the apps generated by any company should secure, there shouldn’t be any misuse of the client’s data. Also, the unnecessary notifications which pop in without even using the app should be stopped. There are also a few searching problems faced by clients like when a client searches for a related product or services something other than that appears on the screen. Making sure that the clients using the apps are in safe hands.