Following on from the controversy which broke on Friday concerning the FreeAppADay.com website, founder Joe Bayen has posted an explanation of the site's paid-for status, as well as rolling out two exceptions to the default $1,200 fee.

His statement reads...

I want to sincerely apologise because I should have handled the issue in a more transparent manner. I was able to generate some income [with ICS Mobile's Navy Patrol: Coastal Defense], because I was able to understand how to best utilise the traffic generated by the Appvent Calendar event.

The Appvent Calendar event lasted only thee weeks for one specific reason, because it cost money to run such a site and running a site on yearly basis requires a different infrastructure and more staff which dramatically increase the cost to run the site.

And this cost must be recuperated otherwise the site will simply not be sustainable over the long run, and since it is a business we need to generate a return and portion of this return is also utilised to improve the site itself (web, servers, more staff etc...)

I decided to create FreeAppADay to help the small developer community by giving them pointers on how to best utilise a surge in traffic.

These pointers were not laid out in a comprehensive manner, and yesterday's discussion allowed me to create on our developers blog a comprehensive template to help small developers utilise FreeAppADay based on their respective goals.

With 120k apps and growing on the App Store, it is impossible for a small developer to survive in this environment if the business model is not adjusted to reflect the cheer volume of application entering the App Store on a weekly basis.

To reflect the concerns related to the costs of advertising/promoting on the site, I have decided to lower the pricing structure. The new pricing is now divided into three category.

1. First Time Developer with compelling apps (see submission guidelines) will still have their fee waved

2. Developer with applications which never reached the top 100 in the game section will receive the special 50% discounted rate of $600, which will not be indexed to the site's traffic. Again make sure to have a clear understanding of your goals before contemplating a FreeAppADay campaign.

All other developers will pay the basic rate [$1,200] which will be subject to adjustment based on the sites daily traffic over time.

I hope I was able to answer your concerns, feel free to contact me through the site's contact page if you need me to answer additional questions.

Again I sincerely apologize for mishandling the issue, I was very green since it is a new concept and I will do my best to have a more transparent approach in the future.

Joe Bayen.