Swiftkey makes keyboard free

The popular alternative keyboard Swiftkey has made its app free. Until Wednesday, the virtual keyboard cost around 3 euros. The company now wants to monetize selling themes in its own Store.

The move is necessary, according to Swiftkey, because of the 200 million installations of the virtual keyboard, only 6 million were paid copies; the other 194 million downloads are presumably the free version, a manufacturer’s version, and illegal downloads. From this it can be deduced that the keyboard has generated a total of around 12 million euros for the company in recent years, but after the one-time payment Swiftkey no longer earned anything from users.

The keyboard itself is therefore free and users have to pay for themes, which the company puts in its own Store. The intention is to have a permanent stream of income, also from users who have not paid up to now. Users who had the paid version immediately get a number of themes to use.

Swiftkey is an alternative keyboard for Android that attempts to complete and predict words based on what users have typed in the past. It ranks as one of the popular keyboards for Android. Swiftkey is also coming to iOS 8, which will enable third-party keyboards on iPhones for the first time.