Figure 1a depicts the cumulative price distribution for Android applications. (Facebook applications are free, so we do not provide a price analysis for them.) Applications cost up to $200, and a majority of all applications are free. Globally, the price distribution has the most probability mass at low prices and a long tail at high prices. This is evident due to the almost monotonically decreasing slope of the cumulative distribution.
We find that developers are strategic in their pricing of applications. This is evidenced by a strong localized effect that manifests itself at prices just under each full dollar amount. This effect is the most noticeable at the $1 area: very few applications cost between $0.01 and $0.70, but many applications cost between $0.70 and $1. In the $2 area, this effect is apparent again, and this repeats on a dollar interval. The magnitude of this effect monotonically decreases with increasing price. An exception to this trend can be seen around $10, which may be a psychologically significant price due to its extra digit.