I used to pick prices the way most solo devs do. I'd look at a few competitors, feel weird about charging too much, and land on something safe. Usually $4.99. Sometimes $2.99 if I was feeling insecure about the feature set.
Then I'd launch, get a handful of downloads, and wonder why the math never worked out.
The problem wasn't the app. The problem was that I never actually ran the numbers before shipping.
The spreadsheet phase
At some point I started making Google Sheets before every launch. Column A was the price. Column B was a guess at how many people would buy. Column C multiplied the two and subtracted Apple's 30%.
It helped. But every time I wanted to compare three tiers, or switch from monthly to annual, or see what happens at 5% monthly growth vs 15%, I'd spend an hour rebuilding the sheet. And I never trusted my own formulas enough to make a real decision from them.
So I built a tool instead.
What the calculator does
App Pricing Calculator lets you set up your pricing tiers, pick your platform, choose a billing model, and see the revenue breakdown instantly.
You can toggle between App Store (30% cut), Small Business Program (15%), Google Play (15%), Gumroad (10%), or direct sales (0%). The difference between 30% and 15% is more dramatic than most people expect when you project it over 12 months.
You define up to five tiers. For each one, you set a price and how many users you think will be on that tier. The calculator shows you gross revenue, platform fees, and what you actually keep. There's a growth slider too, so you can model what happens when your user base compounds at 5% or 10% or 20% per month.
The 12-month projection chart is the part I find most useful. Seeing the curve makes the difference between tiers feel concrete. A $3 price gap between your mid and top tier might look small on a pricing page, but stretched over a year with compounding growth, it's a different story.
Why this matters for solo devs specifically
When you're on a team, pricing discussions happen in meetings. Someone from marketing has data. Someone from finance runs models. There's a process, even if it's messy.
When you're solo, the process is you staring at the App Store Connect pricing dropdown at 11pm trying to decide between Tier 3 and Tier 5.
Having a visual model changes the conversation you have with yourself. Instead of "does $6.99 feel right," you start asking "what conversion rate do I need at $6.99 to hit $2,000/month net." That's a better question. It leads to better decisions.
A few things I learned from using it on my own apps
Platform choice compounds. Switching from App Store's 30% to the Small Business Program's 15% doubled my effective margin on one app. Same price, same users, meaningfully different outcome. If you qualify for the reduced rate and haven't applied, you're leaving money on the table every month.
Annual billing smooths everything. When I modeled monthly vs annual subscriptions side by side, the annual model was more forgiving of slow months. One annual subscriber at $49 is worth more than a monthly subscriber at $4.99 who churns after six months. The calculator makes this obvious in a way that thinking about it abstractly never did.
Three tiers is almost always right. I experimented with two and four in the calculator. Two tiers don't give people enough room to self-select. Four tiers create decision fatigue. Three gives you a free or cheap entry, a solid middle, and a premium that makes the middle look reasonable. Classic anchoring, but seeing the revenue split across tiers makes you understand why it works.
Try it
The tool is free, runs in your browser, and doesn't require an account.
👉 devkoan.github.io/app-pricing-calculator
If you're working on a pricing page right now, open it up and plug in your actual numbers. Even rough estimates will give you more clarity than vibes alone.
I've got a few more free tools in the devkoan toolbox if you find this one useful. Revenue estimator, privacy policy generator, and a few others built for the same audience: developers who ship alone and need to make good decisions fast.
I write about shipping indie apps, pricing, and building toward financial independence as a solo developer. If that sounds like your situation, the newsletter is here.
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