With or without ads A question for health apps

In-app ads are a popular source of revenue, for apps, but there are other monetisation strategies. Payment-per-download or in-app purchase options may complement or substitute the in-app ads strategy. From a sample of health apps available in the Portuguese Google Play Store and Apple App Store, we use probability models to study how other monetisation strategies influence the likelihood of including in-app ads. We find that in-app ads revenue may substitute revenue from payment-per-download while the in-app purchase option seems to complement ads revenue. Our results also suggest that the monetisation strategies adopted cannot be dissociated from the choice of the app store.