Making money as developer

[paulera888]

What are the payment systems available for making money out of clock faces and apps, since Fitbit's store doesn't support it yet? What are fees, pros, cons?

Thanks

[Pietero · Accepted solution]

The only method is using Kiezelpay or creating one yourself.

Pro's of kiezelpay:

• Easy to setup
• Nice overview of your sales
• Time trial option
• App bundle sales
• Discount codes
• Take care of VAT in all countries
• Good customer service and handling refunds

Cons (why I am now developing my own method)

• No monthly/yearly subscription option
• Payouts are 2 weeks after the month closure
• Integrations is not seamless and sometimes quite heavy
• fee is 0,25 dollars per transaction + 27% commission
• Not able to contact customers directly
• Only the creditcard or paypal as option. This is fine for US customers, but Europe not realy
• Withholding VAT. As small business in my country do not need to pay VAT, this would save me roughly 20%. 

Maybe things will change now Google has bought Fitbit.

[paulera888]

Hi @Pietero thanks for your reply. I've heard about frustrations regarding Kiezelpay not being very practical when the user wants to switch clock faces frequently, they have to go to the website and re-enable it, or something like that.

Do you happen to know more about it? Is there something I could do to improve the user experience?

Thanks!

[Pietero]

Basically kiezelpay looks into the clusterstorage and localstorage for an account and then makes an api call to the server to validate the purchase. If that validation does not succeed the users gets a prompt to pay. When you go to the website kzl.io/code to enter the code it looks like you have to pay again. But if you enter the same email as from your previous purchase and then click "Paypal"or "credit card" then it will continue as normal. 

Upon start of the app you can enable a popup which states "this a a paid app...... If your already paid, click the button". But that doesn't seem to work.

What I did to bypass this is by storing the current payment status in a file. I read that file upon app start. If the status != "licensed" then I initialize kiezelpay library. Yes, this is more insecure and users could potentially bypass a payment because they can install the app on multiple watches with one account. However, I prefer this option for user friendliness. I'll take that 0.01% users for granted that use it for free.

[paulera888]

@Pietero thanks for sharing, that's gold.

I look forward to seeing you as another player in this market if you decide to move forward with your own method. Reach out should you need someone to test. Good luck!

[Pietero]

Hi @paulera888 ,

Im almost done with my own payment method. I'm still in doubt to publish this method and make it available for other users.

The system is now superior to kiezelpay in terms of user friendliness and costs.

I'm in doubt to make it available for other because the market is realy small while the time that I have to spent to make this platform available for everyone is huge. So my question is, what lacks my current solution to make it available for other developers? What are the minimum viable product requirements? In other words, how much time do I need to spend 🙂

What I have now:

• The system where you can see on watch a code and fill it in on my website.
• Pay with any payment method: PayPal, creditcard or any other payment method that is popular in your country.
• Yearly/ monthly subscriptions / payments
• trial periods
• Email addresses available for the developer. Even of those that filled in the code but not yet paid.
• Check kiezelpay purchase and transfer that.

What i don't have:

• Promo codes
• Bundles
• Fancy website for developers

I will post my Test app in a few weeks here. 

[ChrisSwim]

I have also been working on my own solution based on a custom web site / web app.

The flow is something like this:

You register on the App's website using your Fitbit credentials via Fitbit OAuth2.0 service, all this does is identify you as a Fitbit user, it will only ask for the minimum permissions to get your email address. Once registered there will be a button to generate a set of credentials to use in the Watch App's Companion on the phone, similar to how you can login to Fitbit via the companion.

Once logged in via the companion, a free trial is activated for whatever duration I decide. Back on the website, a purchase can be made which will then be activated in the watch via the companion, in the companion there will be a refresh button to re-check the purchases from the server, or maybe it could check once the trial expires.

The same credentials can be used for multiple apps from the same developer, if the tokens on the companion are stored in that new shared storage area (forgot what's its called) it could also remove the need to login seperately from multiple watch / companion apps.

I may also consider turning it into service which can be used by other developers once I have the time.

[Pietero]

Hi Chris,

What made you decide to make your own solution? Interesting to see your OAuth method. I don't have a lot of experience with building OAuth. 

You refer to the Cluster storage. As App you can access only 1 cluster storage. A payment provider cannot check the storage of several apps from different developers. If all developers use the same clusterstorage key, it would be possible though.  I currently have a Production, Acceptance and Beta version of my watch which share cluster storage so users can switch seamless. Please mind if all apps from a cluster are removed, The cluster storage gets removed.

[ChrisSwim]

I didn't really fancy being reliant on a 3rd party solution unless it was something that was essentially too big the fail (by fail I mean fail permanently), so my only 3rd party reliance is going to be Stripe.

I could make it so that users could register on the website with just any username and password, and then use the same in the companion app, but this is not as flexible if for example you lose or sell your watch and want to transfer your purchases to a new watch etc. better to keep the watch app credentials separate.

[ChrisSwim]

I have just been looking at the one that was mentioned in this thread, are there any other such payment services for watch apps?

[Daskwer]

Thanks for info! I hope this helps me.

[mschloey]

I found here some great suggestions. So here's my recommendation https://reallyneedcash.com/how-to-add-money-to-cash-app-card/. I've been using it for a while, and for my needs, it's great. However, I still have some tips&tricks that I have to learn about the app. It's a shame that you can't do that with Fitbit yet. Let's hope that in the near future they'll improve it. It'll also bring them great feedback. I'm sure users will be very pleased.