Tell HN: Thinking about making a K-12 app now? Know how education pricing works.
First, and most importantly, unlike apps for private use, schools pay per device for your application. This is new for the 2011-2012 school year, so schools are feeling a lot of sticker shock. This is going to drastically affect your price point.
Second, schools have to pre-pay for their volume purchase, in vouchers starting at $100. Expect school systems to set a budget for apps at the beginning of the year, use one PO to buy the vouchers, and then not buy more except in very extenuating circumstances. (Your app will not be an outstanding circumstance. One by Apple or Pearson might be.) School budgets are very involiatle and only refresh once a year; if a school cannot afford your app in October, they cannot afford to buy it until the next September.
Third, schools do not have a way to handle in-app purchases (yet?).
Finally, you can choose to offer schools a 50% discount on purchases of 20+ copies of your app(and only a 50% discount, no more, no less).
Expect this to have a strongly downward price pressure on your app. One school I know only looks for free apps, and finds Apple's Volume Plan too cumbersome to use. My wife's school, K-8 has an app budget of somewhere just south of $1000. Their policy was: each grade level must choose, as a team, one application that costs $1.99 per unit or less. Plus free apps. That's it for the year.
In short, if you're looking to hit the classroom, you're probably going to need to stand out in both polish and price. Polish to get noticed above the others, price to get in under budget.
Links to check out:
Apple's FAQ: http://www.apple.com/education/volume-purchase-program/faq.html
Blog post on what it looks like from the educator's point of view: http://learninginhand.com/blog/app-store-volume-purchase-program-explained.html
3 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 19.8 ms ] threadThe public servants who buy educational products must justify their purchase in terms of educational efficacy and cost. A minimal viable product is low cost (in dollars), low cost in terms of implementation, and it's designed around well-validated instructional strategies. Ideally, you have some educational experts on your side (not some grad student in education, but well regarded and seasoned educators... who cost a lot).
Although Khan Academy is free in dollars, the educational quality of their content is all over the map. Educational quality turns out not to matter to much (e.g. Compass Learning) when it comes to buying decisions. But...
Is Khan Academy teaching things in a way that can be integrated easily into ordinary classroom instruction? Can Khan Academy point to research that supports their pedagogical approach? Can they even state their approach? (aside from, "we're charismatic and free!").
If not, then in the mind of a large purchaser, Khan Academy is not a viable large-scale alternative. It's an accountability thing.
Education requires deep pockets. Content production is costly enough, but you also have to pay experts to endorse or help build your product.
The truly disruptive technology will lower those costs.
Hardly any school districts have iPads and there are a slew of "educational tablets" in the pipeline from manufacturers like Intel.
I'd only build something with Apple's platform with the intention of reaching a limited consumer market.
(Also, isn't pay-per-device cheaper for a school district than pay-per-student? Normally, multiple students share one device, or it's one to one.)