When I was trying to figure out a price for Habits, I found a few articles that were interesting. This one from Andy Finnell made the rounds on Reddit and advocates for busting through the $0.99 mentality and pricing applications in the $9.99 range.
The fix for pricing too low is really simple: raise your prices. Most $0.99 apps should become $9.99, $4.99 apps should become $14.99, and so on. With a $9.99 app, you’d make $7 per copy and at 16 copies per day, you’d make about $40,000/year. That’s not a great income, but that could potentially support one iPhone product being developed in some Iowan’s wheat field.
This other article from Andy is also good.
John Gruber made an interesting point when he linked to Andy (software with higher prices needs demos and refunds)
Tap, Tap, Tap has had a couple of AppStore hits, so what they have to say is also very interesting.
iPhone apps are typically much smaller and more focused than desktop apps and as such, should be priced accordingly. In addition, you need to take into account the much larger market that you’re dealing with here… Apple is selling well over 10,000 iPhones per day and these are all potential new customers, plus all the existing iPhone owners and iPod touch sales.