When building the app, one question constantly lingered in my mind: Should it be a paid app, or free with ads?
To get a better perspective, I asked a friend who has been developing apps since the early days of the App Store. He told me, “Singaporeans generally won’t pay for utility apps like this.”
Thinking about it, I realized he was right. I don’t pay for utility apps either—I always look for the free ones. In fact, I rarely pay for any app at all.
That said, I really dislike advertisements—especially the kind that’s slapped all over the interface just to grab attention. What bothers me even more are those forced ads that interrupt the experience and demand you watch them.
So I made a promise to myself: if I include ads in my app, they must be thoughtfully designed—clean, minimal, and non-intrusive. The main focus should always remain on what matters: bus arrival times.
Another consideration was whether to offer a paid option to remove ads. But to keep things simple, I decided that—at least for the first version—there won’t be a paid tier. Everyone, including myself, will see the same ads.
Card-style ads