Since its inception, the Chrome Web Store has been a great place for developers to market and sell Chrome apps. The options available to developers were always a little slim though. Starting today, Google is fixing that.
Google announced today that Chrome Web Store is getting new monetization options, including in-app payment support. These new options are in addition to new publishing options rolling out today that Google says will help developers focus more on making great content and less on overhead.
Starting with monetization, Google says that extensions can now be monetized either through up-front sales or subscription fees. Developers can also make money through in-app payments. Speaking of which, in-app payments have been added as another monetization option for packaged apps.
Themes have also been added to the list of Chrome Web Store items that can be monetized, but you can only offer them as paid up-front items. Of course, this only makes sense as you can’t really offer a theme subscription or in-app payments. Still, it’s always good to see people being able to finally make money off of their creative work.
So, now you know about the new monetization options, but what about the new publishing options? For starters, developers can now manage all of their in-app payments directly from the developer dashboard. From the dashboard, you can also also “enable or disable products, provide localized descriptions, [and] set prices for different regions.”
Another new feature for packaged apps and extensions is the free trial option. Developers can now specify a certain amount of time that an app can be used for free. After that, a purchase must be made if the user wants to keep using it.
Perhaps the best new feature on the publishing side of things, however, is an update to the Chrome Web Store API that allows develoeprs to “programmatically create, update and publish items in the Web store.” In other words, the Chrome Web Store now supports developers who use an automated deployment process.
As always, Google welcomes feedback from the developer community. You can submit comments and bug reports via Stack Overflow.
Image via Chrome Web Store