Code Justin

Posts Tagged ‘make money off freeware’

I plan to release some of my applications I have made for free.  With today’s economy I don’t see much hope in releasing an application that cost money.  Unless of course there is a serious market for that application or you have a free and pro version business model.

(Note: If you don’t know what monetize means here is an insert from Wikipedia.  “In some industry sectors, monetization is a buzzword for adapting non-revenue-generating assets to generate revenue.“ In other words it means taking something that is free and making money from it.)

The most common way of monetizing your application is to place ads on it.  There are various ways to get paid from ads but in opinion the payout is very little unless you have a seriously popular social network app.  I have been pondering ways to make a little revenue from my free applications and games.  I’m not expecting to generate much cash from this but I do feel I should try to earn a little.  I’m all for letting the user be able to utilize and enjoy applications for free but I feel something should be done to try and give back a little to the developer.

CPAlead gatewayRight now I’m considering putting a block on my application making it unavailable until a user fills out a free survey.  I got accepted into CPAlead (It is a survey network that allows you to get paid when people fill out surveys you host.  Yes the link is a referral link so if you do plan to sign up for CPAlead it would be nice if you do it by clicking on that link.) they allow me to make a certain web page blocked using their gateway until the user fills out one of the surveys.  So for instance say I release my blackjack browser game and a user goes to play it.  They would see a box come up (view the example screenshot) telling them to fill out a survey to access the content.  I would get about 45 to 75 cents for each survey the user fills out.  Do you think this method would turn away too many first time users away?  How often should someone have to fill out a survey to access the browser application?  I would like your input on this.

This leads me into today’s question which is What are some ways to monetize a free application?