Target USD = $17.99 (base price) x PLR (Price Level Ratio)
New Price = floor(Target USD) to nearest $X.99
With two hard boundaries:
- Minimum: $0.99
- Maximum: $17.99 (never exceed the US base price)
The Price Level Ratio is a World Bank indicator (PA.NUS.PPPC.RF) that measures how expensive a country is relative to the global average. A PLR of 0.30 means goods in that country cost ~30% of what they cost in a reference economy. The lower the PLR, the bigger the discount.
After multiplying $17.99 x PLR, the raw result is floored to the nearest $X.99 price point. For example:
- India:
$17.99 x 0.2451 = $4.41floors to $3.99 - Brazil:
$17.99 x 0.4901 = $8.82floors to $7.99 - Australia:
$17.99 x 0.9002 = $16.19floors to $15.99
Flooring (rather than rounding) was a deliberate choice - it biases toward the lower price, making it more generous to users in lower-cost countries.
6 territories had a PLR above 1.0 (Bermuda, Barbados, Switzerland, Cayman Islands, Turks & Caicos, British Virgin Islands). Since their cost of living is higher than the US, the formula would produce a price above $17.99 - but the cap rule keeps them at $17.99 unchanged. The idea: never charge more than the US base price.
- Primary (168 territories): World Bank PLR 2023 data
- Fallbacks for 6 territories without World Bank data:
- Taiwan, Venezuela, Yemen: IMF World Economic Outlook 2023 - derived PLR from GDP PPP vs GDP Nominal ratios
- British Virgin Islands: World Bank ICP 2021 PPP conversion factor
- Anguilla, Montserrat: No direct data at all - estimated by using PLR from comparable ECCU (Eastern Caribbean Currency Union) peer nations (Antigua & Barbuda for Anguilla, average of Dominica and St. Lucia for Montserrat)
- World Bank PLR (primary): https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPPC.RF
- Taiwan (IMF WEO): https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/profile/TWN
- Venezuela (IMF WEO): https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/venezuela-gdp/
- Yemen (IMF WEO): https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/yemen-gdp/
- British Virgin Islands (World Bank ICP 2021): https://www.ceicdata.com/en/virgin-islands-british/gross-domestic-product-purchasing-power-parity/vg-ppp-conversion-factor-private-consumption
- Anguilla & Montserrat (ECCU ICP 2021): https://www.cepal.org/en/publications/84540-international-comparison-program-2021-cycle-latin-america-and-caribbean
Apple's App Store has 27 territories that won't accept USD prices via the API - they require local currency. For those, the plan queried Apple's equalization data (what Apple maps a given USD tier to in local currency) and used that local price in the CSV instead. This was a lesson learned from the discount subscription plan that was executed first.
| New USD Price | # Territories |
|---|---|
| $2.99 | 3 |
| $3.99 | 14 |
| $4.99 | 33 |
| $5.99 | 26 |
| $6.99 | 14 |
| $7.99 | 14 |
| $8.99 | 16 |
| $9.99 | 9 |
| $10.99 | 10 |
| $11.99 | 5 |
| $12.99 | 6 |
| $13.99 | 5 |
| $14.99 | 5 |
| $15.99 | 5 |
| $16.99 | 3 |
| $17.99 | 6 |
The net effect was overwhelmingly price decreases, ranging from -6% to -83%. The biggest cluster landed at $4.99 (33 territories) and $5.99 (26 territories), reflecting that most of the world has significantly lower purchasing power than the US. Only 6 territories stayed unchanged at $17.99.
Applied across all 175 App Store territories.