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This Calorie Tracker App Makes $800,000 a Month (Cal AI)

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App Masters10:57Open on YouTube
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The bottom line

Cal AI turns viral social videos into downloads, then converts them with an onboarding that mixes questions, social proof and commitment before a trial paywall. A simpler paywall, a weekly plan and a free first scan could earn more from the same traffic.

Key takeaways

  • Viral social videos are the top of the funnel that drives the downloads. 1:15
    • The app launched in April 2024 and has about 300,000 downloads, and its makers run Viral Development LLC, which knows how to go viral.
    • Similarweb shows Reddit, YouTube and Twitter as social sources sending people to the App Store link.
  • The onboarding alternates questions with social proof so users keep going. 4:30
    • The social proof screens give users a break from answering questions and start building trust.
    • The "what's stopping you" question shows objections that ads can answer later, such as lack of consistency.
  • The flow asks for a rating, notifications and a referral code at moments when users feel good. 5:42
    • The referral code step suits apps that use influencers or affiliates, and MacroFactor does the same.
    • Apple may skip the rating prompt if the app asks too soon, which is normal now.
  • The paywall would convert better if the screen before it dropped the price and said "7 days on us". 7:11
    • The pricing on that screen made the speaker think the paywall had already arrived.
    • On the paywall itself, videos outperform photos and photos outperform graphics, and before and afters work well.
  • A weekly plan with no trial next to a yearly plan with a trial could earn more. 8:17
    • Someone who downloads a calorie tracker is ready to use it, so they may not need a trial.
    • For the hard paywall, offer a free first scan and send a push five minutes after they close it. Then show the paywall again with no trial.

Anytime you can make the user feel like they got to win, use that casino mentality.

Steve P. Young, App Masters

Chapter summaries

0:00 Reading Cal AI's traffic with free tools

Free analytics tools give a rough but useful picture of where an app's traffic comes from.

  • Similarweb gives a rough read on an app's traffic. 1:26
    • Pasting the App Store link in as a website shows visits to compare with Sensor Tower's downloads.
    • Sensor Tower puts revenue above $800,000.
    • The visit count may run a little lower than the download figure.
    • The free version is enough, and it only gives a general sense of the channels.
  • Day and country data show where to spend. 2:05
    • Mondays do best and Sundays worst.
    • The top countries are the US, Brazil, then Japan.
    • Meta ads let you set spend by day: lower it on Friday, ramp up from Sunday night.
  • The same method works on bigger brands' web campaigns. 3:07
    • Another company's site, spotted on LinkedIn, gets its traffic mainly from YouTube.
    • LinkedIn is its second source.
    • Big brands push people to their own site, where they control more than in the App Store.

3:44 The first onboarding screens

The opening screens are plain, but they hide one gap and set up a commitment.

  • The "where did you hear about us" list leaves out the App Store. 4:00
    • Early screens ask gender and workouts per week.
    • The options are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Google.
    • Apps that copy this flow should add the App Store, since they likely rely more on ASO.
  • Goal questions lead to a commitment step. 4:48
    • Height, weight, birth date and main goal come first.
    • Losing six lbs is a realistic target.
    • A "90%" social proof screen follows the goal.
    • Asking how fast you want to go makes users commit. Duolingo uses the same trick and it works.

5:29 The last onboarding steps build to a win

The final screens target users by diet, then reward them so the plan feels earned.

  • The closing questions and visuals let users feel they won before the paywall. 5:37
    • The diet question lets the app target users by the way they eat.
    • Falling chips and money, like a jackpot, lead into the goal and recommendation screens.
    • The testimonials sit beside the line made for people like you, with thousands of people shown.
    • The referral code step is easy to skip, and the app makes that plain.

6:58 Fixing the paywall and the free scan

The paywall should bring new proof, and a hard paywall can still give one free scan.

  • The paywall should show new proof instead of repeating itself. 7:52
    • The user already saw the trial message, so testimonials and before and afters fit better.
    • The reminder in three days is fine as it is.
    • A rival app's try for free button reads as less intimidating than a price-led one.
    • That app pushes only its annual plan.
  • A free first scan can win back users who leave a hard paywall. 9:24
    • Zero sends a push five minutes after the paywall closes, saying your first snap is on us.
    • The free snap is all they get.
    • If they X out, show the paywall again after the photo, with no trial.
    • The speaker says this has worked for other clients.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young, Founder of App Masters, app growth agency. A teardown of the Cal AI calorie tracker's onboarding flow and paywall, with specific changes to test and free tools for estimating how a competitor gets traffic. It matters because the app reportedly makes over $800K a month (per Sensor Tower) from about 300,000 downloads less than a year after launching in April 2024, driven by viral social videos.

Lessons that draw on this:

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript293 lines
0:00

coming up I'm going to break down the all so popular Cal AI app that is making over $800,000 a year what they're doing right what they can improve upon and my best guess at how they're driving so many stinking downloads stay tuned what is up app Nation it is Steve Pou young founder vms.com and welcome to this app teir down that you guys also love and today we're going to take a look at Cal AI it's an app that's really blown up on x/ Twitter and I wanted to take this second to really break down the app and kind of highlight some of my key findings I have no idea how they're driving the downloads by the way but I'll give you some tools to help you sort of guesstimate what they might be doing so let's get into it for those are not familiar here is the app as you can see according to sensor Tower is making over $800,000 of month doing about 300,000 downloads and it launched really recently just a little under a year ago

1:06

in April of 20124 and the guy who created it I forget his name but he's on Twitter and he's blown up as well and so has this particular app viral Development LLC so these guys know what it takes to go viral on social media and use that those viral videos as the top of the funnel to drive downloads to their app all right I will we'll get into the flow but before I do I want to give you some my favorite tools that I've been using to analyze how people are driving traffic there's a great website on the website of things called similar web and I'm on the free version by the way so I've put in Cal AI in here so you guys can see so according to similar web they did about 125 million visits to the App Store so you can kind of do the math and see if that translates to the 300,000 downloads that sensor Tower is reporting might be a little bit lower okay so you can kind of see I just put in their app link in here

2:04

as a website so you go under website performance and you can start putting here website analysis and you input this particular link you can see by day this gives you some Trends so you can see that Mondays generally do better for this app Sunday's not so good but obviously makes sense start of the week would make better sense so you got to get a sense of what days you should push your marketing spend Monday and within meta ads you can control what days get more of the spend vers versus certain days so maybe on Friday you want to really lower that spend but come Sunday night start ramping up that spend for that Monday push you can see the most popular countries right here as well it's us Brazil followed by Japan and then here's the interesting stuff so you can see the marketing channels again this is the app so I don't know how great similar web is great at tracking it but it gives you a general sense and

2:52

then the last part is the social traffic here too so you can see Reddit being a pretty interesting source for them for just the the App Store link YouTube Twitter obviously like I said and then so forth right display at networks you can kind of take a peek at here what I also want to show you during this is how a website looks so this is c.com and I saw this on LinkedIn somebody was talking about it and with Comm they use YouTube as a great source of web traffic getting people into the app so if you check out comm's YouTube channel you can see what they're doing right and wrong on YouTube to drive people into cm and then LinkedIn surprisingly was number two so you can kind of get a sense especially for these bigger companies that have web to app campaigns or web campaigns you can see what they're doing to drive traffic to their website because obviously these bigger Brands want people to go to their website not

3:41

just the App Store as well they can control a little bit more on the website all right let's get into the Cal AI onboarding flow and their paywall so here it is Cal AI That's Just the loan page choose your gender how many times do you work out per week real basic stuff you're not going to find anything interesting here one thing I did noticed was on the where did you hear about us maybe he's so reliant on social media right Facebook Instagram Tik to YouTube Google that he forgot to put in App Store so when I scrolled here there was no app store in here so if you're copying the Cal AI onboarding flow which I know a few of you guys already are make sure you have app store because you guys are probably more relying on ASO then maybe this guy is okay have you heard have you tried other apps I like this question too and I like how during the onboarding float what he's doing right is asking questions and then

4:34

having social proof interweaving numbers not only is it good for you to start building that social proof but it also gives the users a break so they're not constantly having to answer your stinking questions all right hide and weight when were you born how old are you what is your main goal what is your desired weight losing six lbs it's a realistic Target it's not hard at all 90% so social proof here how fast you want to go and this is commitment having some way of getting users to commit to your app dual lingo already gave this number out does work so this is the commitment piece that you add on here's some social proof what's stopping you so this is great what's stopping you because then now you can start to overcome objections in your marketing so in your ads right you can be like hey have you found that lack of consistency makes you stop your calorie tracking and your losing weight Journey well Cal does

5:35

Da d right so you can Target your users that way too do you follow a specific diet and then what would you like to accomplish here's some more social proof really love this visual too give us a rating obviously five stars they do ask for it CI was made for people like you thousands of people right here and I love that they have these testimonials too so boom notifications now if you are asking for it too soon sometimes Apple might not show it so if you're starting to see that that's okay that's just because Apple knows we're all doing this now okay so I love this piece reach your notification goals allow and then allow is right here as well do you have a referral code so if you're doing any type of affiliate marketing or using influencers as a distribution Channel this is a really good step I saw it on macro factor that app as well that's they're doing the same thing and they are using influencers to drive most of

6:26

those downloads so you can hit next I love that you can skip this too and they make it pretty much known so I love the visuals I love this type of stuff anytime you can make the user feel like they got to win right use that casino mentality you're those chips falling that money falling from the jackpot love this hit next again at prompt we're setting everything up for you and then congratulations your goal is starting here it is your goal right here's what you're going to do here's a recommendations let's get started so I can scroll let's get started now here's what I would change okay I think most apps are going to start moving towards this so pay attention we want you to try calai for free okay this is a visual that shows off the app I saw rest of me do the same thing I don't know who copied who or who came first that I won't know but I think they should remove the pricing just say instead of

7:16

having no payment now and this pricing just put continue because I thought the pay wall was coming up I thought I was going to actually have that Apple prompt right away so maybe they're priming their users but but I don't think you need to do that I think you can just be like we want a giveway for free you can try it for 7 days so I would just change this visuals to be like 7 Days on us continue setad of no payment now okay we'll send you a reminder or three days if you got three days we'll send you a reminder this is fine right now you can start showing the prices continue and then you hit the pay wall so he doesn't need to reaffirm here's where you can start putting your testimonials again before and afters we know those work really well I would do that instead of just you already you're sort of repeating yourself here maybe that will is working but what we found is sometimes videos on pay walls outperform

8:07

photos photos outperform graphics and you already told me this piece so I think I would try to change that around too and with this type of app what I would almost try to do is maybe even a weekly offer because these AI apps sometimes weekly does a lot better than yearly so I might just have a yearly and weekly option where the yearly has a 3-day Tri and the weekly just has no trial and they have to start their Journey because you have to think if I'm downloading calorie tracker app I'm ready to use that calorie tracker app right so those are my changes here the only difference is this is showing you the monthly and some of the changes from a text perspective for that so like I like this I think you can have visuals you can have that video as well I know you had it before but you can have some visuals and some social proof like before and afters or testimonials here which they had before right like don't

8:58

forget so here's the full pay wall journey and this is the recie that has something similar you see what I mean I like the H the fact that like try for free try for free or continue try for free but I like that it's try for free it's less inative and as you can see with ree they're only pushing their annual so you can do that and what they can do this is a hard pay wall you can't get out of this what you can do Cal is let them right do like maybe even that first scan for free and then boom hit him an offer look he's already doing really well but that's what rese does too where you just have the yearly offer right here allow them to skip maybe after a while or send them a push notification this what zero does too 5 minutes after I close this pay wall be like hey your first snap is on us want to do it right and then when they hit that button you can then show them the pay wall still they want to buy or X out

9:54

and then have them snap their first photo and now show them the pay wall again with no more trials now that they've seen the benefits of the software you can just try to upsell them with no more trials that pay wall shouldn't have it so that free snap is all they get right it has worked for other clients too so if you've got an app that you want me to really analyze and kind of give some feedback on well leave a comment below and if it happens to be your app we just go to check out atm.com audit if is one of your app and it's a really big app that's been successful and you want me to feature it like this just reach out to me Steve at appmaster .c all right until next time make sure you hit that like And subscribe button we're going to be doing a lot of great content and we go live every Friday 9:00 a.m. Pacific where we really break down all the strategies you need to grow your app downloads and revenues if you want

10:46

to work with us well that's easy just go to appmaster