With the Monday launch of paid software in its webOS App Catalog for its Pre smartphone, as well as the forthcoming Pixi, Palm has finally given its app developers the much-rumored ability to start charging for their apps.

The cost of the paid apps falls in the range of between 99 cents to $9.95.

Of the 13 new apps unveiled by Palm, six new paid apps hit the store shelves late Monday, four of which were: Checkers Pro, WeatherBug Elite, Air Hockey, and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

However, in spite of the newly-announced apps, there still is notable dearth of apps for the Palm Pre smartphone, because of which the company announced at a recent developers’ event that it intends expanding its appeal to the open-source community.

Going by the announcement, the developers of apps for the Palm smartphones will soon be able to launch their applications via the web, over and above their launch through the App Catalog. For every new title that developers submit via the web, Palm will provide its users a requisite link for downloading the title.

In addition, Palm will also do away with its present norm of running the apps through checks, a practice it follows for the current download store. Moreover, the standard $99 yearly fee for webOS developers will also be waived off for developers producing open-source software.