Friflex not only develops mobile apps but also supports them. The Friflex team has studied seven stores available to Russian developers and found out their monetization fee, registration costs, and other details.
App Store — iOS App Marketplace
The App Store is the only platform where you can publish iOS apps and games. It is present in 155 countries. The App Store now has about two million releases. The store is popular as iOS is a closed system.
Developer registration — 99$ per year.
Monetization fee — 30%.
«Our record of the review duration in the App Store is 3 months. The review in the App Store is a roulette game. Your app has been going through it successfully for a long time. But at some point you find out that it violates the rules and cannot be published further.
And it cannot pass the review until you correct this particular error. In our case, the app was rejected and reviewed for a very long time. The technical support answer was: "We are checking, we need more time"»,
— Nikita Spiryanov, Head of Mobile, Friflex.
Google Play — Android App Marketplace
Google Play is the main platform for Android apps. There are 2.59 million apps on it. Recently, after registering, the app has to be tested on at least 20 users and for at least two weeks. Only after that can you apply for its release.
Developer registration — 25$.
Monetization fee — 15% in the first year of app placement, 10% - after.
«Once our app was almost removed from Google Play. We got a letter stating that our app violated the rules. And it would be removed if we didn’t correct the error.
As it gradually became clear, the instructions link was unavailable. Google noticed that and blocked the app. Therefore, it is important to pay attention even to such little things as the link availability to privacy policies and data processing rules»,
— Nikita Spiryanov, Head of Mobile, Friflex.
AppGallery — Huawei App Store
AppGallery is the third largest and most popular app store after the App Store and Google Play in Russia. AppGallery is interested in increasing the number of apps. And it works great with mobile developers’ requests.
Developer registration is free.
Monetization fee. In the first year, the app placement is free. The mobile developer can get all the revenue from in-app purchases. Games are the exception. The commission for their placement is 15%.
In the second year of the app placement, developers of ed apps receive 90% of revenue from all sales, and the rest 85% of revenue.
«In AppGallery, you can place apps available for Google Mobile Services. But it is more logical to place the apps with HMS (Huawei Mobile Services), which work without Google Mobile Services. Because all products with Google Mobile Services can be published on Google Play.
We had to almost completely rewrite the Google Mobile Services for HMS in our app. And we were constantly in touch with AppGallery tech support that gave advice on development.
AppGallery has one big drawback - completely manual moderation of all Russian segment reviews. It took from 11 to 28 days to get a user's comments. Then we left a response to it. And it was published a few weeks later. It was the slowest communication with users ever»,
— Alexey Gormakov, Deputy Head of the Technical Support Department of Friflex applications.
HMS (Huawei Mobile Services) - services and interfaces for developing applications on Huawei devices.
RuMarket — Russian Google Play
RuMarket is a Russian app platform for Android with manual moderation and verification. There is an advantage for users — you don't need to register or create an account to download apps. The site asks to enter only email.
The design of RuMarket is quite simple and resembles Google Play. The store has about 13K games and apps and more than 20 million users. The site has many competitors, so it has fewer rules for mobile developers. It has no such strict testing rules as Google Play does.
Developer registration is free.
Monetization fee — 15%.
GetApps — Xiaomi's app store
This store is preinstalled on all Xiaomi devices. More than 100 million people around the world use it.
The store offers а huge directory with different types of apps that can be sorted by rating. There is a new product section. The Mi brand apps are highlighted. The store offers a support program for developers. It allocates money to promote new products.
Developer registration is free.
Monetization fee — 15%.
RuStore — another Russian Google Play
RuStore is supported by VK and the Ministry of Digital Science of the Russian Federation. Now it has more than 30K Android apps. The developers can earn money thanks to paid content, subscriptions, and in-game purchases.
Developer registration is free.
Monetization fee — 15%.
«We have published a well-known retailer’s app with end-to-end certificates. The encryption protocol protects online communication. But users couldn't update their app via RuStore because it was downloaded from Google Play. RuStore offered to update the app but could not do that.
We came to know about this bug from user feedback and recommended removing the app and downloading it again from RuStore»,
— Alexey Gormakov, Deputy Head of Technical Support for Friflex applications.
Galaxy Store — Samsung app store
Galaxy Store is an application store developed and distributed by Samsung on its devices running Android and Tizen. It's available in 125 countries. The Galaxy Store is pre-installed on all Samsung devices. The web version of the Galaxy Store operates in Russia unlike the web version of Google Play, its main competitor.
In the Galaxy Store, there are apps, forbidden by Google Play. For example, Fortnite, a game blocked by Google Play and the App Store.
Developer registration is free.
Monetization fee — 30%.
If you think about publishing your mobile app, we recommend choosing one or two of them. Pay attention to the terms of developer registration and carefully study the technical requirements.
For example, Google Play requires you to test the app on at least 20 users before release. In AppGallery, the app can only be downloaded if it has HMS.
It's not enough to just publish the app. It is important to update it regularly, track errors, and respond to user comments. If you need help with mobile app support, feel free to email us. We will make sure that your app works stably and resolve user issues with understanding and care.
