Hi guys,
I've been building a Shopify app for over 2 years, and we're still at around $1K MRR. Would love some advice.
We started as a free app and got 5,000+ installs, 50 reviews, and ranked #1 or #2 for our main keyword.
A year later, we introduced paid features (average $34/month). Changed our positioning to match the paid features.
A couple of users left 1-star reviews, and Shopify keeps removing 5 star reviews from those stores that have closed. Despite getting new reviews from paying customers, we're still stuck at around 50 reviews and have slipped to the second page.
Our paying customers get good ROI, but new customer acquisition has slowed down significantly.
The pricing dilemma:
Lower pricing ($9/month) attracts smaller merchants, but they need a lot of onboarding support, and churn is high.
Higher pricing makes more economic sense, but we aren't getting enough new installs and reviews to recover our ranking.
How would you improve App Store rankings and review velocity without lowering prices?
Has anyone faced something similar? What worked for you?