How much would you pay for a Facebook app? For most apps, most people would probably pay nothing. But for some apps, such as member-to-member online tutorial services, charging could become an option. At least Tien Tzuo hopes so. The CEO of Zuora is bringing his billing subscription service to Facebook, which has more than 50,000 apps in search of a business model. Tzuo argues:
It is very easy to build an application and easy to get distribution, but nobody’s really making money and everyone is still talking about advertising. Advertising never really worked for apps. Subscriptions are the missing ingredient for people to make money.
Zuora lets app developers charge recurring monthly subscriptions for their apps or premium features. Subscriptions can be weekly, monthly or yearly, and as little as 25 cents or $1. Teach the People is already using Zuora. Tzuo is looking for five more developers to test out his beta (sign up here).
Zuora handles the self sign-ups, the billing, the product catalog, and the hand-off to payment gateways such as Paypal or credit cards. In return, it takes 2 percent of each subscription. Zuora has raised $21.5 million so far for its billing-as-a-service model.
Maybe just having the option to charge a monthly or yearly subscription will force Facebook app developers to come up with more apps that people are actually willing to pay for.
Will it get popular? don’t think so…But I will try my luck in using it in beta
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
I think it will definately be a hit… if put to use properly..
This will definately trigger the use of facebook as a social business tool more that just as a social network.
Billing an facebook App? Will anybody buy it
I love this company and what they do, but the last time I spoke to them about using their service their marketer said I would need over $50k in monthly transactions before I could be a customer.
I hope they changed for Facebook. Otherwise this is not going to help small innovative developers on the platform but the existing large companies who are still figuring out how to port their products over to Facebook.
Thanks Mohammad. A quick clarification : Many of our customers are pre-revenue. We do have a minimum price, but it is low enough that most developers find it attractive to use our application and our Z-Commerce platform instead of building this out themselves, allowing them to focus on building their application.
Good idea – Facebook, in my opinion, is ripe for subscription-style applications, especially since they are offering PayPal as a payment method.
Right now, a lot of FB applications are forced to monetize themselves using pay-as-you-go credits, which are both clumsy and non-recurring. Subscription payments should be able to do away with this problem – provided, as Erick said, that developers come up with something worth paying for.
GOOD!I love this company
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facebook are pigs, they totally fkd the developers once they had milked them for the viral growth
anything that brings facebook undone is alright by me
Forget it!
It won’t work. No one paying for facebook applications.
Oh, good. Now instead of invites to stupid quizzes and lil(insertmoronicthinghere) I’ll get ads to sign up for paid services. I’m still not interested in SuperPoking you for money, same as in high school.
Well, how about just getting one application that works with other sites. And you get PAID for it???
Taking social sites by storm:
http://www.chat...r=1938&i=l0
I love when people say users will never pay a subscription on an app. What do you know? As someone who’s created several small scale apps I’ve been nothing but amazed at how much people will pay for something seemingly useless.
I wonder if people would really use such applications. As far as I know, people use facebook to connect with their friends but for tutorials? hmmm.. guess they have to prove me wrong.
TechFilipino
Except that it is ridiculously expensive. you already have merchant account fees, then credit card fees and now additional fees on top to manage your subscription. Good idea if you have thousands of subscribers. Not a good idea if you are a typical facebook app.
Hmm isn’t this very risky? Facebook can just easily ban the service…
You guys are so far up Zuora’s butt. It’s gross.
We’re really impressed with a different subscription billing company called SubscriptionDNA.com – they’re small, independent and have a cool model.