We raised our iOS app price to $50/mo to cover Apple's 30% cut. We lost 40% of users.

We built a B2B productivity tool that helps freelancers track billable hours. Our core web app is priced at $35/month, and we have about 400 paying customers. Last year, we finally launched our iOS app to capture the "on-the-go" market.

We set the price in the App Store at $35/month to match our website. Then, we looked at the revenue reports. After Apple took their 30% cut, we were netting just $24.50 per user. We were actually losing money on every iOS user after accounting for hosting and support.

So, we made a decision: we raised the App Store price to $50/month to cover Apple's tax and maintain our margins. We thought our power users would understand; after all, we were providing immense value.

The backlash was immediate. Within two months, our iOS subscriber count dropped from 120 to 70. Our App Store rating tanked from 4.8 stars to 3.2 stars. The reviews were brutal: "Greedy developers. Why is it $15 more expensive just because it's on my phone?"

I tried adding a disclaimer in the app description explaining the App Store fees, but people didn't care. They just saw that we were charging a premium. What stung the most was that our churn didn't just happen on iOS; some users saw the higher price on the App Store, went to our website, saw the $35 price, and felt we were being deceptive.

We are now stuck. We can't afford to eat the 30% cut, but we can't sustain the PR hit of charging a 40% premium on mobile.

For founders who sell B2B/SaaS on mobile: How do you handle the App Store tax without alienating your users?

Do you force users to sign up and pay on the web only (using a "read-only" app)? Do you offer different feature sets for the mobile app to justify the price gap? Or do you just accept the lower margins on iOS?