I've changed the pricing for Actions For Obsidian

Actions For Obsidian
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TL;DR: Most in-app purchases got more affordable, biggest price drops outside the Euro zone.

It was brought to my attention that, internationally, the pricing for my macOS/iOS app Actions For Obsidian was a bit odd. Apple isn’t without blame here, but ultimately that’s fully on me. I simply didn’t check all the local prices after setting the base Euro price tags, and I apologize.

Why it matters

The below changes do not look like much if you’re the Euro zone but for calculated local prices the difference can be staggering. Read below for more.

The new pricing

… went into effect over the weekend:

License “Size” Old price New price
macOS or iOS S €11 €9.99
M €14 €12.99
L €17 €17.99
Upgrade to both platforms S €8 €7.99
M €10 €9.99
L €12 €12.99
Combo license for both S €19 €17.99
M €24 €20.99
L €29 €25.99

You can access them from inside the app.

Where I went wrong

I looked a bit deeper into how Apple calculates local prices, and …it’s surprisingly lazy? Totally bonkers? Both, actually. I had no idea!

So, when a developer sets the price for an app or IAPs in the App Store, they can either pick from a pre-defined list of prices, or they can enter an arbitrary price. Since I like nice round numbers, I set the price to €19 instead of €18.99 (using one of the IAPs as example).

Here, Apple’s price calculation kicked in. I then spot-checked a few of those prices, they all looked fine, and I considered that task completed.

So, in the process, for those €19, Apple’s “calculation” set the local Australian price to AUD 29.00.

Only last week I learned that when I decrease that nice round €19 to €18.99, the Aussie price becomes AUD 29.99. (What.) Changing it to €18.00, it becomes AUD 29.00 again. Going down to €17.99, the local price drops to AUD 22.99. :exploding_head:

Absolutely wild.

But why, Carlo‽

My current theory is that Apple really, really wants us developers to use their *.99 pricing scheme matrix (…, €7.99, €8.99, €9.99, €12.99, €14.99, €17.99, €19.99, €24.99, etc.). For those prices, there are properly calculated local counterparts.

But for those custom prices, Apple doesn’t actually calculate anything, it seems; they just use the nearest “standard” price. That’s why €17.99 comes out as AUD 22.99 correctly (because €17.99 exists in Apple’s matrix), but €18 is AUD 29.00 because their pricing matrix doesn’t contain that.

And it’s not just about Australia — my apps are available in 150+ countries which don’t use the EUR. :man_facepalming:t2:

Summary

To my (potential) customers, I’m sorry for the oversight. If you were still on the fence whether or not to spend money on Actions For Obsidian, I do hope you take another friendly look.

To my fellow developers, spot-check your local prices often. :sweat_smile:

Peace out,
—Carlo

1 Like
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Created an account so that I could comment to express my gratitude! Thank you thank you thank you. I’m pretty sure I’d looked at your price previously & my reaction was “ooph”.
Not only is there this silliness going on, we also get squeezed whenever there’s large currency fluctuations. historically, the $AU is usually weaker than the $US, but whenever the $AU goes over parity, all of the overseas vendors crank up their prices. When the value inevitably drops, do they then bring prices back into line? Absolutely not! So over time the cost continue to inflate and the discrepancy between what developers are charging in their local currencies and what Australians (and others, of course) are paying. Yesterday I was looking at a professional development platform, based in Australia, that charge their customers in $US. I guess if they’ve got a large overseas customer base they’re entitled to charge a rate that won’t tank their revenue as the $ fluctuates, but to charge local customers in an overseas currency is sheer bloody laziness & greed. I was pretty pissed off when I noticed that, so seeing your post was exceptionally well timed to restore a little bit of faith in humanity.

Having said that, have I bought Actions for Obsidian? Still not yet. I just checked & the nag screen is telling me I’ve used Actions for Obsidian 19 times in the past 707 days. I’m not the most prolific user, and I wish I had the capacity to make more use of the tools available, but it’s slow progression! Having been reminded that I have this app available, I hope to make more use of it to justify purchase, which I shall do happily & smugly (I love the warm & fuzzy feelings of supporting small businesses/creators rather than corporate behemoths, especially ones such as yourself who as so transparent and active with their user base.) Sorry for rambling on & one, just had to express my appreciation. Cheers!

1 Like
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Thanks for your kind words! Nice to hear back from people on topics like that, sometimes sending out those missives feels like typing into a void, you know. :slight_smile:

Yesterday I was looking at a professional development platform, based in Australia, that charge their customers in $US.

That is ridiculous. I’ a customer of EU-based hosting companies which deal in USD only. It’s weird. One could argue they’re not inside the Euro zone (not all EU countries are) but still. But a local company not using the local currency, that’s bonkers.