Two years ago, Amazon announced a programme that would reward developers with a free echo device for building an “Alexa Skill”.

Featured Interview with Amazon

Whipping up a couple of small skills unintentionally lead down a path that had me flying to the US, getting over 1,000,000 users across my skills, and conducting Voice/VR research projects.

What is an Alexa Skill?

Alexa-enabled devices (Echo Dot, Echo Show, etc) have the ability to run apps developed by 3rd party developers, giving us as developers the chance to work with some interesting new tech, and giving users more value.

What incentives are there for building skills?

From time-to-time, Amazon will offer developer perks in the form of echo devices, hoodies, and even a Christmas bauble! They’re a great way of attracting new developers and building a community around skill development. Of course, as nice as freebies are, they don’t help you grow a business. Amazon currently offers two forms of monetisation for Alexa Skills.

A few of the free Alexa devices I received through Developer Perks

Monetisation on Alexa

The battle of voice assistants between Amazon, Google, and now Samsung, has grown increasingly fierce in recent years, though Amazon’s strategy of focusing on developers creating businesses from their platform and growing that community has seen them completely dominate the third party developer market.

The two main forms of monetisation with Alexa are Developer Rewards and ISPs (In-Skill Purchases).

Developer Rewards

These are monthly payments you receive based on the engagement of your skill, ranging from as low as $50 to as high as $9000 per month. There is no public data on how these rewards are calculated, and tend to be quite volatile, meaning you should not rely on them to sustain your development. They are happy little surprises that no other voice assistant offers, so make the most of them while they’re around!

In-Skill Purchases

The voice equivalent to IAPs (In-App Purchases) offers users the ability to purchase and access more content within an Alexa Skill with just their voice. While not currently available in all regions, support is being rolled out regularly to other areas. ISPs come in three forms: “One-time purchases”, “Consumables”, and “Subscriptions”. Choosing the right implementation of your ISP is imperative to its success.