For most apps the answer is no: charging one price everywhere leaves both revenue and reach on the table. The App Store lets you set a different price in roughly 175 territories, and a subscription that feels cheap in the United States can be a week's wages in India or Nigeria. A good iOS app pricing strategy sets a sensible base price and then adjusts it per market by local purchasing power, so the price converts in rich countries without pricing out everyone in emerging ones.
This post covers why a single global price underperforms, how App Store per-territory pricing actually works, and four concrete strategies you can pick from, ranging from the simplest equal-worldwide approach to purchasing-power-adjusted curves.
On this page
- Why one global price underperforms
- How App Store per-country pricing works
- Four pricing strategies
- How to choose
- Setting it up without doing 175 countries by hand
- FAQ
Why one global price underperforms
Pricing the same dollar amount everywhere quietly fails in two directions at once. In high-income markets like Switzerland or Norway you are often leaving money on the table, because customers there would happily pay more than your US price. In lower-income markets your US price is simply out of reach, so instead of earning a smaller amount from many customers you earn nothing from almost all of them. Purchasing power varies enormously: the same $12 per month is a rounding error for one customer and a serious monthly commitment for another.
The result is that a flat global price both undercharges the wealthiest markets and locks out the largest ones. Localized pricing is how you fix both. It is also worth remembering that price is only half of what you keep; your commission rate matters too, which is why enrolling in the App Store Small Business Program to get the 15% rate is worth doing before you obsess over price points.
How App Store per-country pricing works
You do not set 175 prices by hand from scratch. In App Store Connect you choose a base country and a base price, and Apple generates a proposed price for every other territory from its own price matrix, handling currency conversion, local tax norms, and the country's price-ending conventions (the local equivalent of a .99 ending). From there you can accept Apple's proposals or override any territory manually.
That means localized pricing is a matter of deciding how far to deviate from Apple's automatic conversion in each market, not building a spreadsheet of 175 currencies. The mechanics of how Apple keeps those per-territory prices aligned are covered in App Store price point equalization, and the country-by-country reference for a real subscription lives in the 25-country pricing guide.
Four pricing strategies
There is no single correct curve, but there are a few sensible archetypes. Expressing each as a percentage of your US base price makes them easy to compare:
1. Equal worldwide. Every territory sits at 100% of the US price, using Apple's standard currency conversion. It is the simplest option and the right starting point if you just want to ship, but it ignores purchasing power entirely, so it undercharges rich markets and prices out poorer ones.
2. Western premium. Full price across the tier-one markets (US, Canada, UK, most of Western Europe, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and similar), with steeper discounts as income drops: roughly 90% in Italy and Spain, around 70% in Mexico and Turkey, and about 50% in India and Brazil. A pragmatic default for an app whose core audience is high-income but that still wants emerging-market reach.
3. Netflix-style. Modeled on how a large streaming service prices internationally, normalized so the US is 100%. Some markets actually pay more than the US (Switzerland near 150%), most Western markets land within about ten percent of the US, and emerging markets drop hard (India and Brazil near 35%, Turkey near 20%). Good when you want to capture high-income markets aggressively.
4. Indie sustainable. A gentler emerging-market discount than Western premium, tuned so the discount is deep enough to convert without diluting the brand or inviting cross-region gaming: roughly 50% in India and 40% in Turkey, with smaller cuts elsewhere. A reasonable middle path for a solo developer.
All four round to each territory's price-point conventions rather than producing odd local amounts. The point is not to pick the "best" one in the abstract but to choose the curve that matches where your users are and how price-sensitive they are.
How to choose
A few questions narrow it down quickly:
- Where are your users? If your audience is overwhelmingly US and Western Europe, equal worldwide or Western premium costs you little. If you are seeing meaningful installs from India, Brazil, Indonesia, or Nigeria, a steeper emerging-market discount will convert far more of them.
- How elastic is your category? Utilities and niche pro tools tolerate higher prices; broad consumer apps are more price-sensitive and benefit more from localization.
- Do you want revenue per user or total reach? Aggressive high-income pricing (Netflix-style) maximizes revenue per paying user; deeper emerging-market discounts maximize the number of paying users. Most indies want some of both.
- Can you revisit it? Prices are not permanent. Start with a defensible curve, watch conversion by region, and adjust. Just do it carefully for existing subscribers, as covered in changing subscription prices without losing subscribers.
Setting it up without doing 175 countries by hand
The reason most indie apps end up on a flat global price is not that localization is a bad idea, it is that configuring dozens of territories and keeping them matched in App Store Connect and RevenueCat is tedious. The practical approach is to hand-tune the markets that matter most (a couple dozen high-traffic territories) and let Apple's equalization fill in a sensible price for the long tail of smaller territories, so no market is ever left empty or misconfigured.
That is the difference between "localized pricing is a nice idea" and actually shipping it. You pick a strategy and a base price, apply the curve to the markets worth tuning, and rely on Apple's price-point matching for the rest.
FAQ
Should my app cost the same price in every country?
Usually not. A single global price undercharges high-income markets and prices out lower-income ones. Adjusting price by local purchasing power typically increases both revenue in rich markets and paying-user counts in emerging ones.
How many countries can I set a price for on the App Store?
The App Store operates in roughly 175 countries and regions, and you can set a distinct price in each. You do not do this from scratch: you set a base price and Apple proposes the rest, which you can then override per territory.
What is a good pricing strategy for an indie app?
A purchasing-power-adjusted curve with full price in high-income markets and meaningful discounts in emerging ones. A gentle "indie sustainable" curve (around half price in India, for example) converts price-sensitive markets without cheapening the app in wealthy ones.
Does localized pricing hurt my revenue in rich countries?
No, it can raise it. Some markets (Switzerland, Norway) will bear more than your US price, so a good strategy charges them more, not less. Localization is about matching each market, not discounting everywhere.
How do I price the long tail of small countries?
Tune the handful of markets that drive most of your traffic by hand, and let Apple's price-point equalization set a sensible, converted price for the remaining territories so none are left empty or mispriced.
Can I change prices later?
Yes. Prices are not locked in. Adjust them as you learn which regions convert, but handle changes for existing subscribers carefully so you do not disrupt or churn them.
Picking a strategy is the easy part; the tedious part is applying it across every market and keeping App Store Connect and RevenueCat in sync, which is exactly why most apps never localize. Spaceport does it for you. You choose one of these strategies and a base price, and it pushes per-territory prices to App Store Connect through the API across 25 tuned markets, equalizes the rest so no territory is empty, and matches everything in RevenueCat, then generates a SwiftUI project with the paywall already wired to that pricing. Localized pricing becomes a setting instead of a spreadsheet. And when you are lining up a waitlist and launch-day audience for the app, our sister tool Lighthouse covers that side.
From an indie iOS dev, for indie iOS devs.