Always Get The Best Deals On Mobile Apps


The standard price tag on mobile apps isn’t terribly high, but if your threshold is 99c, you might find yourself scoffing at paying any more than that on an app, no matter how well-received it is. Whether you’re sick of paying full price, or you just want a good deal, it’s not hard to always score the best deals on apps provided you have a little patience.

Chances are you fall into one of two camps: you’re always looking for the best deal on apps and hate paying full price, or you simply hate the feeling of buyer’s regret when you pay full price for an app only to see on sale the next day. Although it’s not possible to fully predict the future to stop the latter from happening all the time, a few common sale times makes it easier to predict, and we’ll go through those in a bit. First up, however, is finding a way to track price drops easily and efficiently. Let’s take a look at the options for iPhone and Android.

Set Up Price Drop Alerts and Create a List of Apps You Want

In order to track the price of apps you want, you’re going to want to create a list so you easily check on the price of an app. A handful of services exist for this on both iPhone and Android. Let’s take a look at how you can use them to always find the best deals on the apps you want.

Set Up Notifications of Price Drops on iPhone


You have a lot of options for setting up price drop alerts on specific apps, but one of the easiest to use is App Shopper. After you create an account, you can search for any app in the iTunes app store and add it to a wish list. When you add an app to your wish list, App Shopper will either send you an email or a push notification when an app drops in price. This way, if you have an app you’re keeping your eyes on but don’t want to pay full price, it’s easy to track the sales and grab it whenever you like.

If App Shopper isn’t your thing, Appsylum (created by former Lifehacker contributor Tamar Weinberg), AppMiner and App Hits have similar functionality.

Create Wish Lists and Track Apps on Android


Android users don’t have the abundance of options for automated alerts that iPhone users have. However, AppBrain and AppsFire both allow you to add the apps you want to a list so you can quickly check in and see their price at any time. It’s not as simple as a notification, but if you don’t mind checking in on your apps often, it’s the easiest way to track the price of apps you might be interested in.

If you want notifications, you can try Apps Prices Watcher, but we noticed the app had a little trouble keeping up to date and sending notifications.

Hold Out for Common Sale Times

Both the iTunes App Store and Google Play love having sales around the holidays. It doesn’t really matter what the holiday is. You can count on sales around Easter, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and more.

On top of that, apps also tend to go on sale after they hit the top of the charts to celebrate their success, or after an anniversary of some kind. Yearly anniversary sales are common, and if there’s an app you’re waiting on a price drop for, it’s worth taking a look at the sale history. You can see an app’s sale history at App Shopper for iOS and AppBrain for Android to get a good idea of how often the developer puts apps on sale. You can also see the initial release date to see if that one-year anniversary is around the corner. If an app has a history of going on sale around a given holiday, you can count on it doing it again for the next one.

Apps aren’t usually that expensive, but if you buy a lot of them the bill adds up pretty quick. Holding out for a good sale and knowing when those sales happen is a good way to keep your app purchasing budget in check. Have some tips of your own for keeping up with sales and always getting a good price? Share them in the comments.


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