According to a recent report by market research firm Canalys, Android apps appear to be, on average, 2.5 times more expensive than iOS apps. The research firm estimated that the top 100 paid-for apps available in the Android Market would amount to a combined cost of $374.37, while the top 100 iOS apps would cost only $147.00.

Looking at the average price for the top 10 and top 20 apps, Canalys found the average price to be $3.47 or $4.09 for a top app in the Android Market, but only $0.99 and $1.04 for the top 10 and top 20 iOS apps.

Furthermore, the market research firm notes that 82 of the top 100 paid apps in the U.S. Apple Store cost $0.99, while only 22 of 100 apps in the U.S. Android Market are priced within this range. Android and iOS users do, however, have very different tastes when it comes to buying apps, which may constitute a plausible reason for the discrepancy.

Most Android apps are actually very cheap, commonly priced at $0.99 or $1.99, but power users are generally the biggest spenders. Many Android enthusiasts seek office/email suites, root-only toolkits and security applications which come indeed at quite a high price. The office tools cost $15-$20 each, therefore such purchases would automatically generate big numbers in Canalys’ data. They would change the average, but cannot be considered representative for what all apps actually cost.

Moreover, there is an overlap of only 19 apps in the top 100 of both Android and iOS apps, and nearly all of them cost roughly the same on both platforms. There are even a few top iOS that are free on Android. Canalys compared prices for the top 100 paid-for apps, but a more accurate analysis should compare prices only for identical apps.