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4 ways to make money on the Amazon Appstore

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You’ve made an incredible app — now what? How do you take all those hours of hard work make them pay off, or rather make them pay you?

Here are four ways you can monetize your app on the Amazon Appstore:

1. Charge for your app

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The simplest way to make money from your app is to charge customers to purchase and download it. As part of the app submission process, you can choose whether your app is free or paid during Step 3: Add Appstore Details.

By default, your app is set to Free. To charge for your app, select Paid. After you select Paid, enter a base list price and currency from the drop-down menu. You can allow Amazon to calculate other countries’ list prices or set your own.

2. In-App Purchasing

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The In-App Purchasing (IAP) API allows your app to present, process, and fulfill purchases of digital content and subscriptions within your app. Amazon supports an IAP API for Android Apps and Web Apps.

Here are 4 ways you can use IAP your app:

  • A "freemium" model, where the app is free, but you charge for advanced services or functionality.
  • Sell items to enhance your game, such as currency, extra moves, or lives.
  • Sell bonus levels or mini-games.
  • Enable subscriptions to content available within your app.

Check out Anisha Malde’s guide to walk you step-by-step through implementing the IAP API in your app.

3. Ads in your app

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You can add in-app advertisements in your Fire tablet apps via third-party Ad SDKs. Check out our list of supported ad SDKs. With those SDKs, you can display any of the following ad types on your Fire tablet app:

  • Banner - Rectangular ads that appear at the top or bottom of the device screen. Banner ads stay on screen while users are interacting with the app and can refresh automatically after a certain period of time.
  • Interstitial - Full-screen ads that cover the interface of an app until it is closed by the user.
  • Rewarded - Ads that reward users for watching short videos and interacting with playable ads and surveys.
  • Native - Customizable ads that match the look and feel of your app.

Amazon Publisher Services (APS) also offers advertising solutions for mobile app developers and streaming TV publishers. Check out those links to learn more and apply.

4. Product Advertising API

The Product Advertising API (PA API) allows qualified developers to sell items and provide features such as customer reviews, top sellers, new releases, and more, to increase your earnings.

Mobile app developers will need to apply for approval to use the PA API in their app. Check out the PA API Mobile App Getting Started and Basics guide to learn the requirements and apply. If you need any help you can reach out to the Amazon Associates team.


The Amazon Appstore community space has a knowledge base of articles on monetization and many other topics. We’ve tagged all our monetization-related articles with “appstore-monetize”, so all you have to do to is search for that tag.

If you have questions, let us know!

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