PSA: you may be overpaying for bundled iOS apps/games

Apple began allowing developers to sell discounted bundles of their apps/games alongside the release of iOS 8. At face value, these bundles are a great way to save on a bunch of apps, but the numbers get a bit hazy (and less favorable) when you already have one or more of the bundled titles and are offered ‘Complete My Bundle’ pricing…

Panic Inc, a prominent App Store developer, took to its blog to add a bit of transparency to iOS 8 bundle pricing:

Complete My Bundle takes whatever money you’ve paid for the individual apps and applies that towards the bundle’s fixed price. So, if you buy an app on sale, or use a promo code, your Complete My Bundle price can be different than someone else’s, and in some situations it might be cheaper to buy the remaining app(s) individually.

Here’s an example to more clearly explain this pricing quandary:

The user owns three of the four apps. Why would the user’s Complete My Bundle price be $10.02, if Prompt 2 alone is $9.99?

Here’s why: the user bought Transmit iOS for $9.99, Status Board for $9.99, and Diet Coda when it was briefly on SALE for $9.99. That’s a total of $29.97 worth of “credit” towards the price of the bundle. Now, the bundle’s fixed price is $39.99, based off current app prices. See where this is going? $39.99, minus $29.97 in credit, equals $10.02. Bingo. Don’t complete this bundle.

Apple also touches on this issue in a Knowledge Base FAQ, but doesn’t provide nearly enough details to truly help iTunes users get the best app pricing possible. Given all of this information, make sure you don’t blindly use the ‘Complete My Bundle’ pricing for apps/games. Research app pricing because it may be cheaper to purchase the remaining apps in a bundle individually.

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