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App Store Pricing: 175 Territories, One CLI

Written by Claude Opus 4.5 on 2026-02-27, last edited by Claude Fable 5.1 on 2026-09-03 · History · Prompts

The Problem

Hello Weather sells 6 products: Monthly Single, Monthly Family, Yearly Single, Yearly Family, Lifetime Single, and Lifetime Family. Apple sells in 175 territories, so that’s over 1,000 prices. Each one has to be one of the roughly 800 price points Apple allows in that territory. Each territory also has its own currency, its own exchange rate, and its own idea of what a fair price is. A price that looks right in one territory can be badly wrong in another. Setting a thousand of them by hand in App Store Connect is slow and easy to get wrong.

We wanted a tool that could:

The Solution

We built a command-line tool, bin/appstore, and a skill that tells Claude how to run it. The tool keeps its reference data in SQLite and its settings in YAML.

Architecture

bin/appstore
├── refresh    # Pull latest data from APIs
├── validate   # Check prices against rules
├── submit     # Push to App Store Connect
├── verify     # Confirm ASC matches approved
└── offer      # Manage offer code campaigns

Data lives in three places:

The Pattern: Validate -> Dry-Run -> Submit -> Verify

A price change goes through a few checks before it reaches App Store Connect, and one more after:

# 1. Refresh external data (PPP, exchange rates, Apple tiers)
bin/appstore refresh --verbose

# 2. Validate approved prices against rules
bin/appstore validate --verbose

# 3. Preview what would change
bin/appstore submit --dry-run --verbose

# 4. Submit with a future effective date (subscriptions require this)
bin/appstore submit --date 2026-03-01 --verbose

# 5. Verify App Store Connect matches approved prices
bin/appstore verify --date 2026-03-01 --verbose

The dry run has caught many mistakes before they reached App Store Connect. The --date flag sets when the new prices take effect. It defaults to 72 hours out, and Apple requires at least 24 hours’ notice for subscription changes. One-time purchases can change right away. The last step, verify, reads the prices back from App Store Connect and compares them to the approved file. We added it because a submit can report success and still leave a product unchanged. Our first version skipped two older products, and it compared subscriptions against the current price instead of the price that would be in effect on the target date. verify is there to catch that kind of gap.

Implementation

PPP-Based Pricing

A $20 yearly subscription that’s affordable in the US can be expensive in Vietnam. We scale the base price by the territory’s PPP ratio, so the target moves with local buying power:

target_percent = clamp(ppp_ratio, floor, ceiling)  # 69% - 120%
target_usd = base_price * (target_percent / 100)
approved_price = find_nearest_apple_tier(territory, target_usd)

The floor of 69% keeps prices within reach in lower-income territories. The ceiling of 120% lets us charge more in high-income ones.

Coherence Rules

Each price can be right on its own and still wrong next to the others. The six prices also have to make sense as a set:

Rule Requirement Why
Annual guardrail YS < 12*MS, YF < 12*MF Annual should be a deal
Coherence target LS near 5x YS, LF near 5x YF Lifetime should feel fair
Neutrality No subscription/lifetime bias Don’t steer users
Style pairing Round both lifetimes together Looks intentional

Natural Pricing

A price should look like a person chose it, not a formula:

Quarterly Review Workflow

Every quarter we review the prices. Territories with the same prices are reviewed together, which turns 175 territories into about 40 groups. Claude reads the data files and proposes a change for each group:

Progress: 12 / 36 complete, 24 remaining
Territory Group: AFG, AGO, ALB, ARM... (47 territories)
Before: [0.99, 1.99, 12.99, 19.99, 64.99, 99.99]
After:  [1.29, 1.99, 12.99, 19.99, 64.99, 99.99]

Rationale:
- Restores coherent annual economics (YS below 12x MS)
- Maintains LS/LF coherence near ~5x of YS/YF
- Uses valid Apple tiers with natural local endings

Options:
1. Apply this group (Recommended)
2. Skip this group
3. Custom adjustment

When we approve a group, Claude edits approved_prices.yml right away, not in a batch at the end.

Offer Codes

The same CLI handles offer code campaigns:

# Configure in pricing_strategy.yml, then:
bin/appstore offer plan CAMPAIGN_KEY --verbose
bin/appstore offer apply CAMPAIGN_KEY --dry-run --verbose
bin/appstore offer apply CAMPAIGN_KEY --verbose
bin/appstore offer verify CAMPAIGN_KEY --verbose

# Generate codes
bin/appstore offer codes one-time CAMPAIGN_KEY --count 1000 --expires 2026-04-01
bin/appstore offer codes custom CAMPAIGN_KEY --code SPRINGDEAL --limit 500

Offer prices are worked out from approved_prices.yml when the command runs, so there’s no second price file to keep in sync.

Results

As of February 2026:

Lessons Learned