Full vs. Lite App

Nothing in life is free. Developers also need to earn.

There are two revenue models for content on the web, and for apps. Predominant one is advertising supported revenue. Second revenue model popular for apps is to have a free lite version that demonstrates the app, but is restricted in the number of times or types of things or the amount of time it allows the user to use the app. For a Kids educational app, advertising is not suitable. It is distracting as well as inappropriate. So, we decided in favor of having a lite app, and a low cost full version.

Kindergarten Math Lite is the free version with 25 exercises. Kindergarten Math is the full version with 250 exercises. The conversion ratio is the percentage of people that buy the full version vs. ones that use the lite version. Typically conversion rates in the android market are 1-5%. Kindergarten math lite has about 10,000 downloads. Kindergarten Math has roughly 300 downloads. So, the conversion ratio is about 3% for the Google android market.

One very interesting difference is in the conversion rate for phones vs. tablets -
For android 2.x (phone operating system), Kindergarten Math has ~125 active installations, and Kindergarten Math Lite has ~5000 active installations. So, conversion ratio is about 2.5%.
For android 3.x (tablet operating system), Kindergarten Math has ~70 active installations, and Kindergarten Math Lite has ~500 active installations. So, the conversion ratio is about 14%.

That is quite a difference. Does this mean I should start writing games optimized for tablets? I am not sure. It is not sufficient data to say. But, this year is supposedly the year of the android tablet. I am curious how the ratios and totals will look at the end of the year.