Payment amounts converted via PPP

[xbc5]

Developers that charge a flat rate across different economies make it unfair to smaller, emerging economies, and is likely leading to missed opportunities IMHO.

I wonder if you would consider translating costs via PPP? Essentially it describes what consumers can afford to spend relative to their local economies. For example:

• flat conversion: 20 GBP => ~653k VND -- this is a straight currency convesion
• PPP adjusted: 20 GBP => ~213k VND -- this considers other economic factors

If I were to think that £2 was a fair price for a coffee in Vietnam, I wouldn't charge 65k VND, I'd charge 21k VND.

Here's information on the calculation. It requires some digging to find complete, and up-to-date data resource but there's the OECD price level index (incomplete), and the World Bank Data Catalogue (huge resource) to get you started.

Some informally call it the Big Max Index, IPad index etc. These are slightly different calculations, and they're weighted by import and trade costs -- which might not be the most effective analogue for a straight digital transaction.

What do you guys think?

[Glench]

I like this idea and have thought about it myself. Are there any off-the-shelf indexes to calculate this information? I was thinking about just using Apple's conversion rate tables in app stores in different economies.