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At "just a couple hundred thousand per year" and a $5/month subscription for "Apollo Ultra Monthly"... ( https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apollo-for-reddit/id979274575 ). Apple's cut of that is 30% for the first year and 15% for all following years.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/13ws4w3/had_a_ca...

> Even if I only kept subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost $2.50 per month, which is over double what the subscription currently costs, so I'd be in the red every month.

That's half of what the subscription costs... though he could update the subscription.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213252

> Developers who offer subscriptions can increase the price of a subscription without interrupting service only under certain specific conditions. If the increase does not exceed approximately USD $5 and 50% of the subscription price, or USD $50 and 50% for annual subscriptions, and where permitted by law, developers may change the price without interrupting service. Developers may do this no more than once per year.

> If the subscription price increase is above the thresholds, exceeds the annual limit, or occurs within territories where the law requires it, you must opt in before the price increase is applied. If you don't opt in to the new price, the subscription will not renew at the next billing period. You can subscribe again within the app or on the Manage Subscriptions page.

He could have limited free use and turned off push notifications or drastically cut down on the polling rate ( https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/9l3ema/apollo_13... "The server polls Reddit approximately every 6 seconds, so that's 10 requests per minute per user, or 600 requests per hour per user") and increased the price.

The full passage is:

> For some quick math, Apollo has well over 100K active users. The server polls Reddit approximately every 6 seconds, so that's 10 requests per minute per user, or 600 requests per hour per user (assuming they only have one account and one device). At 100,000+ users, that's in the realm of 60 million requests per hour that my server would have to handle, not to mention parsing the results, coordinating tokens, etc. I really can't do that for nothing, so the plan was to offer push notifications with a small fee associated to cover these ongoing server costs.

Note that the claim of the average user 344 requests per day and the polling rate of 600 requests per hour per user do not seem to be in agreement and may significantly contribute to the API pricing quote.



The price of Apollo according to their website [1] is $1.50/month subscription for their highest tier (Ultra), or a $5 one time payment for their secondary tier (Pro).

[1] https://apolloapp.io/pro-ultra/


On https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apollo-for-reddit/id979274575

    In-App Purchases
    Apollo Ultra Monthly  $ 4.99
    Amazing Tip           $10.00
    Generous Tip          $ 5.00
    Nice Tip              $ 0.99
    Kind Tip              $ 3.00
    Godzilla Tip          $19.99
They may have a separate subscription service that isn't using Apple's. Or it is possible that the page wasn't updated at some point. Those prices, however, are the prices and match the app.


> average user 344 requests per day and the polling rate of 600 requests per hour do not seem to be in agreement

I don't think the app is making those 600 requests 24/7.


The app isn't. The server doing push notifications on behalf of a user is.




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