App Store Pricing by Country: The Developer's Reference

Apple gives you 900 price points across 175 storefronts and 44 currencies. Most developers pick one price point and let Apple auto-convert the rest. That auto-conversion uses exchange rates and tax-adjusted equivalence, not purchasing power. The result is a listing that converts well in a handful of markets and barely sells in the rest.

This post is a reference for App Store pricing by country: how the system actually works, where the defaults fall short, and what a country-appropriate price looks like in several of the largest markets.

I've managed pricing across 8 apps on the App Store for over a decade. For most of those years I accepted the defaults. This is the reference I wish I'd had.

If you're looking for the full execution walkthrough (PPP baselines, rounding, App Store Connect mechanics step by step), that lives in Localized Pricing for Mobile Apps: The Complete Guide. This post is the reference you open when you need to answer the question: "what should my price actually be in this country?"

How Apple's 900 Price Points Work

In December 2022, Apple expanded App Store pricing to a total of 900 price points, adding 700 new tiers (100 of which require a request to Apple). That's roughly 10 times the count previously available to most apps. The ladder starts at $0.29 and goes up to $9,999.99.

Apple's own description of the increment pattern reads "for example, every $0.10 up to $10, every $0.50 between $10 and $50, etc." The fuller picture:

• Lowest three tiers: $0.29, $0.39, $0.49
• Approximately every $0.10 up to $10
• Every $0.50 between $10 and $50
• Increments widen above $50: roughly $1 steps up to ~$200, $5 steps up to ~$500, $10 steps up to ~$1,000, then $100 steps up to the ceiling
• Apple also added alternate rounded endings at each core tier (prices no longer have to end in .99), which is part of why the total count reaches 900

When you set a price, you pick a base country and a base price point. Apple then generates comparable prices for the other 174 storefronts using exchange rates and local tax rules. This is the default, and it's where most developers stop.

The 2022 expansion isn't the end of the story. Apple has issued a steady stream of pricing and structural updates since, and if you're managing per-country prices it's worth knowing the recent ones:

• January 2026 — tax and price updates in 9 countries. Apple announced VAT and tax changes affecting Bhutan, Finland, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Mauritius, Russia, Türkiye, and Zimbabwe. Auto-converted prices shifted accordingly; manually-set prices did not.
• January 2026 — Bulgaria currency change (BGN → EUR). Bulgaria switched its App Store currency from lev to euro on January 1, 2026 at the statutory rate of 1.95583 BGN per EUR. Developer proceeds and customer-facing prices both moved to euros.
• March 2026 — China commission rate cut. Apple lowered App Store commission rates in China from 30% to 25% for standard in-app purchases, and from 15% to 12% for Small Business Program qualifying purchases and year-2+ subscription renewals. This doesn't change your price but does change your payout.
• January 2026 — EU Core Technology Commission transition. Apple moved to a single business model in the EU, transitioning from the Core Technology Fee (CTF) to the CTC. Worth knowing if your revenue is EU-heavy.

The point: pricing-adjacent rules change more often than most developers track. Even if you've set country-specific prices correctly, a quarterly review catches the drift.

What that quarterly review rhythm actually looks like, including how to triage drift across FX, tax, and PPP, lives in the maintenance walkthrough.

For the broader context on why pricing belongs in the localization stack alongside language, metadata, and assets, see the pillar post: App Store Localization: Beyond Language Translation.

What Auto-Conversion Gets Wrong

Apple's auto-conversion solves a real problem: keeping price consistency across currencies. But "consistent" means "roughly equivalent in USD terms," not "appropriate for the local market."

The gap between an auto-converted price and a purchasing-power-appropriate price can be 2x to 3x in the markets where your app most needs to convert. A US user paying $19.99 for a subscription is spending roughly 0.4% of a median monthly income. A user in India seeing the auto-converted rupee equivalent (~₹1,899 after Apple's tax-adjusted conversion) is looking at somewhere between 7% and 13% of their median monthly income, depending on which income source you trust. The store sees that gap in the country-level conversion rate, and it feeds back into discovery. I wrote about that feedback loop in how App Store pricing affects your ASO rankings.

The auto-converted number isn't "wrong" in an exchange-rate sense. It's just not competitive. Users in price-sensitive markets see the subscription price, compare it to what local services charge, and bounce.

Reference: $19.99 Base Across Top Global Markets

Below is a real-world snapshot of what a $19.99 USD base price looks like in eight large App Store markets. For each country, Auto is what Apple shows in App Store Connect when you set $19.99 as your base and let Apple generate the other storefronts (FX-based with local tax equivalence folded in). Localized is what PricePush recommends for the same base, blending local purchasing power signals, typical subscription price anchors per market, and Apple's price-point ladder. Captured April 2026 from one of my own apps; exact numbers will drift as FX, tax rules, and local markets change.

• United States — Auto: $19.99 · Localized: $19.99 · no change
• United Kingdom — Auto: £19.99 · Localized: £14.90 · ~25% lower
• Germany — Auto: €22.99 · Localized: €17.49 · ~24% lower
• Brazil — Auto: R$129.90 · Localized: R$49.50 · ~62% lower
• Mexico — Auto: MX$399 · Localized: MX$174 · ~56% lower
• India — Auto: ₹1,899 · Localized: ₹659 · ~65% lower
• Indonesia — Auto: Rp 345,000 · Localized: Rp 121,000 · ~65% lower
• Turkey — Auto: ₺999.99 · Localized: ₺449 · ~55% lower

Three things worth flagging.

First, "developed markets" still take non-trivial adjustments. The UK and Germany are both high-income economies, but they land ~25% lower than Apple's auto-converted number. Purchasing power in both is meaningfully below the US when you account for wages net of cost of living. The default assumption that "developed markets don't need localization" leaves around a quarter of the price on the table.

Second, the classic price-sensitive markets (Brazil, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Turkey) all land 55-65% below their auto-converted numbers. Brazil auto-converts to R$129.90 because of steep local VAT on digital services, but R$49.50 is what fits the market. India auto-converts to ₹1,899 (with India's 18% GST folded in); the localized price lands at ₹659. These aren't edge cases — they're the markets that collectively represent most of the world's smartphone users.

Third, the localized prices are snapped to native-looking endings. ₹659 reads as an intentional subscription price in India; ₹500 would look auto-generated. ₺449 is a familiar Turkish price ending; ₺415 would not be. That's the last mile of the work, and it's the difference between a price that feels local and one that feels imported.

Your default auto-conversion setting isn't a neutral choice in these markets. It's a decision, and it's one most developers make without realizing.

For the underlying economic concept behind these adjustments — what Purchasing Power Parity means, where the data comes from, and how to think about setting baselines yourself — see Real Localized Pricing: PPP Baselines + Prices That Feel Local.

The Two Types of App Store Pricing (And the Subscription Gotcha)

Apple gives you two ways to price an app or in-app purchase per country.

Automatic pricing (the default):

• You pick a base country and price.
• Apple generates prices for all other storefronts.
• Apple periodically adjusts those prices for exchange rate and tax changes.
• You don't maintain anything, but you don't control anything either.

Manual per-country pricing:

• You set a specific price for individual storefronts.
• Apple does not auto-adjust those prices going forward.
• You're responsible for keeping them current as exchange rates and taxes shift.

Once you manually set a price for a storefront, Apple stops updating it. That's good for control. Bad if you forget. Apple's January 2026 tax changes affected 9 countries (Kazakhstan VAT up 4 points, Mauritius added a new 15% VAT, Ghana removed a levy) and none of those adjustments touched manually-managed prices. Developers who had set manual prices in those storefronts and forgotten kept selling at the old effective proceeds.

Subscriptions have an extra wrinkle. Apple never auto-adjusts subscription prices, regardless of your approach. Subscription pricing is always effectively "manual" whether you realize it or not. If you set a base $19.99 subscription in your home currency, the rupee-equivalent number is locked to whatever the exchange rate was the day Apple converted it. A year of rupee-dollar drift later, the price no longer reflects any exchange-rate logic.

How to Pick the Right Price for Each Country

Three common approaches to setting per-country prices, each with a trade-off.

1. Let Apple decide (auto-conversion). Easiest. No effort. Optimizes for exchange-rate equivalence, not local affordability. Works well in markets structurally similar to your base country; fails in price-sensitive ones.

2. Competitor benchmarks. Check what similar apps charge in each market. Adapty's Price Radar shows subscription prices across 60+ countries. This gives you a sense of local norms but requires manual research per market per SKU.

3. Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). PPP adjusts prices based on what money can buy locally. It's the same approach Netflix, Spotify, and most established global services use. Netflix's cheapest subscription tier in India sits near the low two-dollar range in local terms, not the $9-$15 it charges in the US. Spotify's India Individual plan runs similarly low. Your $19.99 subscription isn't competing with other US-priced apps in these markets. It's competing against that context.

PPP won't give you a perfect price. It gives you a consistent, defensible baseline that prevents extreme mispricing. Apply rounding to match local conventions (99-endings in India, round tens in Turkey, 99-endings with comma decimals in Brazil) and you get a number that feels intentional.

For most indie developers, PPP is the right starting point. It's transparent (you can explain why a price is what it is), repeatable (same methodology across all countries), and gets you close enough to start measuring real conversion data.

Common Mistakes with App Store Country Pricing

After managing pricing across 8 apps for 13 years, the mistakes I see most often:

Ignoring it entirely. The default auto-conversion is better than nothing, but it's leaving money on the table in every market where your app is overpriced relative to local purchasing power.

Setting prices once and forgetting. Exchange rates shift, taxes change, and markets evolve. Apple changed pricing in 9 countries just in January 2026. If you set manual prices and never revisit them, they drift.

Treating localization as discounting. Lower prices in India or Brazil aren't discounts. They're the correct price for that market. Your US price isn't the "real" price and everything else a markdown.

Changing everything at once. If you update all 175 storefronts and all SKUs in one push, you learn nothing. Start with your top 20-30 markets by revenue or installs, measure for two weeks, then expand. There's a narrative version of running into this wall firsthand in I Tried Localized Pricing and Hit a Wall.

Forgetting rounding. A price of 487 INR looks auto-generated. 499 INR looks intentional. Rounding to local price thresholds is a small detail that affects conversion more than you'd expect.

Automating This Across Multiple Apps and SKUs

Setting country-specific prices manually is doable for one app with one or two SKUs. It becomes impractical the moment you have multiple apps, multiple subscriptions, and multiple IAP packs.

The math: 175 storefronts × number of apps × number of SKUs = a lot of price points to manage. And you need to revisit them periodically as economic conditions change.

This is the problem I built PricePush to solve. It calculates PPP-based prices for 190+ countries (covering both App Store and Google Play), applies rounding rules per currency, highlights conflicts and large price jumps before you push, and writes the updates to both stores in one click. A free tier lets you run the numbers on one app before committing.

Key Takeaways

App Store pricing by country is one of the highest-leverage settings most developers never touch. Apple gives you the tools (900 price points, per-country overrides), but the defaults optimize for exchange-rate equivalence, not local affordability.

The gap between auto-converted and localized prices reaches 2x to 3x in markets like India, Indonesia, Turkey, and Brazil. That gap is the difference between an app that barely sells in those countries and one that converts.

Start with your top 20 markets. Use PPP as a baseline. Apply local rounding rules. Measure for two weeks. Then expand.

Try PricePush free and see what your prices should look like across 190+ countries.