Calm
A meditation and sleep app with guided sessions and celebrity-narrated Sleep Stories.
Calm is cited as a loved app that grew into adjacent segments, including insurer partnerships and a Calm Shop at CVS selling sleep gummies and masks. Its quiz-style onboarding tested well, and sleep stories are named as a second product-market fit. The lesson: add friction that shows users why the product fits them, and look for new fits beyond the first.
- 1Take onboarding quizFriction added on purpose
- 2Calm learns who you areAnswers personalize the experience
- 3Routed to right contentTested thoroughly, performed well
From Amol Avasare interview
What was said about Calm
Calm's quiz-style onboarding is friction that helps users see the fit. Calm uses a quiz in onboarding that was thoroughly tested and performed well. Amol Avasare cites it as an example of adding friction that learns who the user is and routes them to the right content.
He groups it with MasterClass's purchase quiz, which was a significant revenue driver, and Anthropic's own long onboarding flow. His advice is to cut steps that add no value but keep the ones that personalize, and test them on your own flows. "Adding more friction usually works if you do it the right way."
A loved core app can stretch into adjacent products and channels. Calm found a second product-market fit with sleep stories, comparable to Duolingo adding new subjects. It has also expanded through insurer partnerships and a Calm Shop at CVS selling sleep gummies and masks.
Its core subscription is $70 a year, a price Waking Up now far exceeds.
Calm partnered with Pok Pok as a brand play, not paid acquisition. Pok Pok's brand department, started about six months before Melissa Cash's interview, produced a collaboration with Calm. Pok Pok invested in brand and partnerships like this to bring in more organic, better-fit customers than fast Meta growth delivered.
"Sometimes you can grow really fast on Meta, but you're getting the wrong people."
How Calm Added 1.2M Subscribers with Creative Marketing Tactics
Grew by testing 5,500 ads built from social trends while PR and partnerships created demand. Paid social alone added 1.2M subscribers, starting from over $100,000 a day on Meta with only 5 to 10 new creatives a month.
Calm partnered with Pok Pok as a brand play, not paid acquisition. Pok Pok's brand department, started about six months before Melissa Cash's interview, produced a collaboration with Calm. Pok Pok invested in brand and partnerships like this to bring in more organic, better-fit customers than fast Meta growth delivered.
"Sometimes you can grow really fast on Meta, but you're getting the wrong people."
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Earns over $5 million a month, mostly on iOS, with a $70 annual plan as its most popular purchase. It shows a seven-day free trial paywall at the end of onboarding, then forces sign-up only after payment, and gates most content.
A loved core app can stretch into adjacent products and channels. Calm found a second product-market fit with sleep stories, comparable to Duolingo adding new subjects. It has also expanded through insurer partnerships and a Calm Shop at CVS selling sleep gummies and masks.
Its core subscription is $70 a year, a price Waking Up now far exceeds.
We’ve Tested 100s of Paywalls. Here’s What Actually Converts.
It only asks users to sign in after they start the free trial, a model Young recommends for putting the paywall before sign-up.
A loved core app can stretch into adjacent products and channels. Calm found a second product-market fit with sleep stories, comparable to Duolingo adding new subjects. It has also expanded through insurer partnerships and a Calm Shop at CVS selling sleep gummies and masks.
Its core subscription is $70 a year, a price Waking Up now far exceeds.
The Anti-Addictive Playbook Behind Pok Pok's 9X Subscriber Growth | Melissa Cash
A collaboration with Calm came out of Pok Pok's new brand department, which started about six months before the interview.
Calm's quiz-style onboarding is friction that helps users see the fit. Calm uses a quiz in onboarding that was thoroughly tested and performed well. Amol Avasare cites it as an example of adding friction that learns who the user is and routes them to the right content.
He groups it with MasterClass's purchase quiz, which was a significant revenue driver, and Anthropic's own long onboarding flow. His advice is to cut steps that add no value but keep the ones that personalize, and test them on your own flows. "Adding more friction usually works if you do it the right way."
App Ideas That People Are Already Searching For (Steal This Strategy)
Used as the 'octopus' example: it started with meditation, then added sleep stories, soundscapes, focus music and green noise to reach new audiences. It does not even rank number one for 'meditation' and cares more about retention than ASO, leaving gaps for small apps.
A loved core app can stretch into adjacent products and channels. Calm found a second product-market fit with sleep stories, comparable to Duolingo adding new subjects. It has also expanded through insurer partnerships and a Calm Shop at CVS selling sleep gummies and masks.
Its core subscription is $70 a year, a price Waking Up now far exceeds.
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It charges $70 a year, a price Waking Up now far exceeds.
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Shows how a loved app can grow into adjacent segments, through insurer partnerships and a Calm Shop at CVS selling sleep gummies and masks.
Head of Growth (Anthropic): Anthropic is automating its own growth
It uses a quiz-style onboarding flow that tested well, one of the examples of friction that helps users see why the product is for them.
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The interviewer cites its sleep stories as an example of a second product-market fit, similar to Duolingo's new subjects.
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Built high branded search volume through paid campaigns, and has more search volume than the generic term "meditation". Young cites it as the value of running paid marketing.
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Gets more search traffic for its brand name than for the category term "meditation", an example of big apps ranking first for their own brand.
The Shortcut to Scale: The Distribution First Mindset
Developers claim their apps beat Calm, but its brand makes distribution easier. Searches for Calm and Headspace outrank the generic word meditation.
This AI Learning App Made $1.8M in Its First Year (Coursiv App)
Used as an example of a crowded broad category. CP Young advises starting with a narrow niche like box breathing instead of fighting Calm and Headspace head on.
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Has no hard paywall, but locks much of its content, which forces users toward paying.
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Shows a quote after meditation that users post on Instagram under #dailycalm, which spreads positivity and makes the sharer look good.
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Its brand name scores higher in search than the generic term meditation, showing that brand names can outsearch generic keywords.
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It emailed Steve a 50% off lifetime offer a year after he subscribed, as a seven-day sale then a last-chance message. He paid $150 on top of his $60 yearly plan.
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Locks nearly everything, so free content takes some searching to find. It keeps lock icons on premium content after a trial starts.
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Calm lets users into the app first and asks for sign-up only after a trial is activated, which is the order the source recommends.
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Its social-proof onboarding screens, such as "90% of our members", lost to Headway's interactive flow in the test used as the example. Calm also puts a paywall in onboarding.
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Chains several offers around a cancelled trial: seven more free days, a 50% offer, then an in-app 31% offer. Its odd 31% number stood out, but four similar discounts in a month blurred together, though the "are you burnt out" subject line is worth copying.
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Shows its paywall during onboarding, and a test of paywall first, then sign-up, then push tripled trial activations (190 percent increase). It locks most content, so free content is hard to find within 30 seconds, and forces sign-up after a trial starts.
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It stayed around 10 people and essentially never lost money, so it pivoted more easily when app tracking transparency disrupted paid acquisition.
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Calm runs stats, account creation and notifications, then shows a pop-up paywall before the home page that users can X out of. Steve bought its lifetime plan on the last day of a seven-day sale and via an email offer as his annual plan was expiring.
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Ranks 3 for "meditation" and 10 for "breathing exercises", where a much smaller breathwork app beats it. Used as a core competitor in the keyword comparison.
Early Stage Growth Strategies
It appeared next to Rootd in Healthline's list of the best anxiety apps, which gave the small bootstrapped app credibility.
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A paywall button test on a Calm-style baseline 'Get Calm Plus' found 'Unlock everything' won by 20.9%, 'Let's explore Calm' by 15.9% and 'Get all features' by 14.1%. The app earns hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, and the testers expected only 3 to 5% lifts.
How to Find Low Competition Keywords That Convert
Its Apple Search Ads bid list is mined for keywords like breathwork, deep sleep and happier, on the assumption that it wants ROI and so its paid keywords probably convert. It even bids on 'period tracker' and 'unwinding anxiety', though some bids may only be tests.
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Used as an example that a new meditation app with a high keyword overlap with Calm can still compete, since overlap is neither good nor bad in itself.
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Steve signed up for Calm's lifetime offer on its website, not the app store. That web sign-up path is what lets such offers work on eFreebies.
App Store Optimization in 2021 - Keyword Research (Part 3/6)
It has over a million reviews and ranks first for sleep sounds, so that keyword is likely too hard to win. Its search score is about 70.
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Used as the demo app, it scores 7.6 on the ASO index against a 7.9 category average. Its title scores 2 but its subtitle scores 10, it has 100 keywords in position one and 41 in the top five, and it ranks sixth for meditation in France but top three elsewhere. Its Canadian and Australian titles carry sleep and meditation keywords but its US title does not.
5 Deadly App Marketing Mistakes
It asks why you downloaded, then offers sign up or exit, putting a pricing page in onboarding. This catches organic users who are ready to buy.
Try This If Your Users Are NOT Coming Back to Your App
Calm asks for push permission during onboarding by asking when users like to meditate, then asks again after a session with morning, afternoon or night options. It then suggests the most popular time for members, 8:00 AM, which users can change before saving.
5 Beginner App Store Optimization Mistakes
A new meditation app cannot beat Calm on broad keywords because it spends heavily on ads and has far higher download velocity.
Do This Before You Advertise Your Mobile App
Used as the main example because it earns a lot in the app space. Its ads lean on social proof and question hooks like 'Do your thoughts race at night', and its audience skews ages 24 to 34, about 60% female, mostly in the US, with Colombia, Brazil and Australia emerging.
ASO What's Working Today in 2020 - MGS Presentation
It shows pricing before sign-up in onboarding. Its first-day and last-day emails drive the biggest sales, and a extended 50% off offer with a last-day email pushed the speaker to buy.
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Another App Masters client, featured by Apple.
How to Build a UA strategy for High-LTV Subscribers
Matt from Calm found that ads showing off the app beat other ads on retention. Saulo only subscribed after a pop-up offering 40% off, despite multiple earlier free accounts and discounts.
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Leads health and fitness top grossing and makes about $3 million, clearing the $2 million bar that signals a proven meditation niche.
How to A/B Test Screenshots on iOS
Used as the worked example, bidding on "meditation" rather than the brand name. Its default screenshots are app of the year, a life-changing skill line and sleep stories, and it ranks first for sleep stories but fourth for meditation.
Sensor Tower ASO Tool Review: Keyword Spy, Research & Apple Features
A client whose keyword lists were mined against Headspace, and it could reach the top five for chakra. Its overview page shows Instagram advertising. It ranks sixth for "kami", but the results are games, so it was dropped.
App Annie ASO Tool Review: Keyword Research, App Store Features & Killer Screenshot Sales Copy
Used as the worked example: Apple's 2017 App of the Year, featured in the US, Russia, Australia and Canada. Its screenshots headline meditation, sleep stories, nature sounds and breathing exercises, and its name and subtitle signal those keywords.
ASO Strategies for Small Apps vs Large Apps
As a large app with tons of downloads, it can put high-traffic generic terms like "meditation" and "mindfulness" in its app name. Steve would do exactly that if he worked on it.
How to Write A Killer App Description
Used as the worked example of mining a big competitor's reviews. Its opening line claims to be number one and is too long, so it should lead with a user count; favorable reviews about waking two or three times a night become copy, and a critical review of 30% battery drain on a 13 minute meditation becomes a claim to answer.
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