What if I change my Android App price to free and after i change idea?

Question

I have read on the market support that "If you have previously published an application for free, you cannot change it to have a price."

But I was wondering, if at the contrary I change my app from payed to free and after some time I want to re change it from free to payed! Can I? And if yes, do I have to wait some period (I have read something like this in the contract)?

Tnk's

Valerio From Italy

Answer 1

You can change your app from paid to free, but the moment it's free, you can no longer start charging for it. It's a one-way street.

Answer 2

Why not just have two versions? One free and one paid. Then just post the version you want available and remove the other one.

Answer 3

As Daniel said, it's a one way thing.

If you do find yourself wanting to be able to charge again for some reason, it would be best to put adverts in (somewhere unobtrusive, I personally hate apps that try to trick you into clicking) and then publishing a second paid 'unlock' app. This app need to nothing other than exist, and the main app can check if it's installed using the Package Manager.

Alternatively you could lock out any future features using the same unlock idea. I wouldn't recommend locking out currently available features in this way however, as it looks bad, will upset your customers, and is quite possibly against the terms of the Android market.

Another consideration here is the users that already paid for it. I tackled this by making the app do a little more and have it check a list of users that I pulled from my purchase transactions.