Kim Kardashian Weighs In on In-App Payments

Her prepaid card may have been short-lived, but superstar Kim Kardashian West still has opinions about payments.

In particular, Kardashian — whose apps include the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game and the Kimoji chat icons — is learning the delicate balancing act of charging for content provided in mobile apps, she said in an interview for the Recode podcast posted Monday.

As companies like Uber have demonstrated, in-app payments work best when the payment is seamless and nearly invisible to the end user. However, this wisdom is at odds with "freemium" games that are free to download but must interrupt the experience at some point to ask for payment.

The topic came up in reference to a series of angry tweets her husband, performer Kanye West, posted last year complaining about in-app purchases in children's games played by the couple's daughter, North West.

That makes no sense!!! We give the iPad to our child and every 5 minutes there's a new purchase!!!

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) October 10, 2015

Kardashian's Hollywood game also makes money on in-app purchases, but she said the frustration comes in when the prompt to make a purchase is done at the expense of the user's ability to enjoy the app.

"When he tweeted that, we were on a long car ride and we were so annoyed that everything kept on popping up … that our daughter would cry," Kardashian said on the podcast. "We're totally fine with in-app purchases if they come up at the appropriate times, not an ad every two seconds."

A separate app Kardashian offers for fans is subscription-based, with subscribers gaining access to perks such as events at which Kardashian makes surprise appearances. The Kimoji app charges $1.99 up front with seasonal add-ons costing $.99.