How You Can Give Your App Away for Free and Still Make Money

Marco explains:

It’s very difficult to reach most iOS users with a paid-up-front app, and the biggest podcast apps by far—Apple’s Podcasts and Stitcher—are both free. When I ask most people which podcast app they use, they overwhelmingly say one of those “because it was free.”

I want to offer a better alternative for the mass market, so it must be free. I’d rather have people using my app than one of its free competitors even if they don’t pay a dime. As long as I can keep the lights on with enough paying customers, this helps everyone:

If they like Overcast better than they would have liked the other free ones, and they listen to more podcasts as a result, that’s a win for them and the podcasters they listen to.

Overcast’s social features will work better with more input, so more people find new podcasts and it’s easier for smaller shows to find audiences.

Overcast spreads to more people, and some of them will pay.

I also want to prove that free doesn’t need to require creepy or manipulative ways to make money. I think, and hope, that my model will work.