We’ve Tested 100s of Paywalls. Here’s What Actually Converts.

Coming up, we've tested hundreds of paywalls and the apps that make the most money generally have the same things in common. So, in this video, we're going to show you what's working, what's not, and the paywall strategies you should steal for your own app. Stay tuned. >> [music] >> What is up, AppNation? It is Steve P. Young, founder of appmasters.com, the YouTube channel that's going to show you exactly what's working in the app space today. For this video, we're going to talk all about my favorite topic, money. And we're going to show you the paywall strategies that are working today and the fundamentals of any conversion rate optimization campaign. So, without further ado, let's get going. All right, we've got seven core principles that you need to follow.

And principle number one, and it should be obvious if you've been in the app space, is paywall on your onboarding experience. Yes, most of the people that buy generally buy before they even use your app. So, this is the RevenueCat State of Subscription Report, and the key takeaway, I know you guys can't see it that close, so I'll zoom in for you. Nearly all trial starts happen on day zero, literally the day they open the app. Across all categories, users who do not try immediately rarely try at all.

That's the principle. So, you want to show your paywall during the onboarding process, and you want to maximize your first open and paywall view. You want those to be as close to 100% as you can possibly be. Number two, speaking on that note of those who don't try immediately rarely try at all, you might want to test a hard paywall. Let me share with you two instances where a hard paywall is definitely beneficial. Number one, paid traffic. You're paying for this traffic, you might as well force them to either pay or get out. Number two, your app is getting downloads but no sales. So, you just launched an app and you're like, "Wow, my organics are hitting, my ASO is hitting, I'm getting some downloads, but nobody's buying." Right? You might want to test a hard paywall. It usually tests product market fit right away, cuz users either have to try, start a free trial, or leave the app entirely. And lastly,

app launch. Yeah, I would be aggressive, especially if I'm in the in the health and fitness space, where hard paywalls generally exist across multiple big apps, I would test right on app launch, because you really want to test product market fit, right? Rather than building upon multiple, multiple features, just be aggressive and have a hard paywall during your app launch. All right, I'm going to give you some real data. Here's one of the apps that we actually had in our portfolio, but we're no longer a part of this particular partnership.

Anyhow, we bought the app, it had soft paywall, allowed you to X out of the paywall. We added no new features, by the way, and all we did was have an onboarding experience and increase the price, put a hard paywall. Now, at the time, I was against a hard paywall, but that's how we coded it, so I said, "Let's launch it." We launched it, went from 1 to 2,000, immediately to 8 to 10,000 right away. And when we put the X, we lost half the revenues. So, our trial-to-paid did not change at all, that percentage remained the same, but our start trial percentage went down in half. So, we've got half the revenues, right? And you can see this picture right away. So, I'm a firm believer in a hard paywall in certain categories definitely work better with a hard paywall. But, a hard paywall can lead to some one-star reviews, especially if you bought the app like we did, because users were so accustomed to

getting the app for free that they're like, "Why do I have to now pay? I can't use the app for free." So, we did get some one-star reviews, and this is why I say, maybe only show this hard paywall on paid traffic. So, here's a normal onboarding sequence. You can see, this is Rest of Me. Welcome to Rest of Me. You go on and on, and then eventually you hit the paywall, right? So, if you notice on the screen where did you hear about us, if users select search on App Store, go ahead and show them the ads.

But, if users selected Instagram or Facebook, maybe remove the ads, right? And it worked. This is a tweet that I screenshotted. This is wild. Superwall's new app stack integration has let us run a test showing a hard paywall to users that come from meta ads, while keeping our app premium for organic downloads. And you can see the difference between a hard paywall and a soft paywall, the start trial rate. A lot better with a hard paywall. Number three, explain the free trial, and I'll show you exactly what I mean by that. Here we go. This Blinkist paywall worked very, very well back in 2021.

How solving our biggest customer complaint at Blinkist led to a 23% increase in conversions. Showing users how your free trial worked help not only increase conversions, but decrease customers wanting a refund. Be like, "Oh, I forgot to cancel my trial." Boom. Just tell them. Rest of Me then came up with this variation that I love. So, you got a video, organize your video. We offer 7 days for free. You'll get a notification 2 days before the trial ends, and then boom, ask for the notification, then the paywall, right?

It worked a lot better. Here's Cal AI's version of it. You still have the video. We want you to try Cal AI for free. Try. We'll send you a reminder, and boom, they still use the timeline on their paywall like Blinkist first did, but this one worked too. Here's another variation. We want you to try out Masters free. This for a client. I'm just I don't want to reveal the client, so I'm kind of using app masters as dummy content. So, here, this is just a screenshot where with some of the features. Want to try free. Here's some social proof. So, rather than building in the reminders, they have a bunch of social proof in here. Continue, and then they had the timeline paywall at the very end as well. And that worked out really well.

And if you want the data, here's one of our apps where when we had this three-screen process, we saw a 56% increase in trial activations. So, I showed you three different variations right here that you can test. Find one that works for you. Now, I wanted to show this one off. It's app masters one because we tried for that same very app, we tried this resume looking one. It did not work as well. And so, my hypothesis now is these do work. You just have to figure out what to say before each one. Depending on your app, you're going to have to show different variations of the same flavor. Number three, sell the outcome.

Sell the benefits. Don't sell the features. So, here's what I mean. Here's Muscle Booster. You can see now and the goal. So, before and afters do really well on this paywall, and then it is a long paywall, so you can keep scrolling. Here's a utility app that allows you to clean up storage, and you can see the before and after. Here's how much you've used, and here's what we can save, right? Using the app. And then lastly, here's a fax. So, I really wanted to pick out three different categories and not just show you the health and fitness. So, here's another one where you can receive faxes, unlimited faxes to 90 plus countries, no ads, fax delivery tracking, all that. So, you're really selling the outcome and what you can get from from purchasing the app. Number four, add more context. And here's exactly what I mean. Now, most of the time people are not going to read what's in your app. They don't like reading,

but they will read when they have to pay you. So, here's what I mean. A versus B, the only difference, same plans, a longer paywall. You Some people just want to scroll. They want to know exactly what they're getting from your app. So, definitely have your plans at the very top on that screen, but if they start scrolling, show some benefits, show some testimonials, show all the different features that are in the free and paid plan, and then have the call to action at the very bottom. Here's another example.

These are four screens, but you just have to scroll, and so I wanted to separate it a little bit so that you guys can see clearly what each part of the screen says. Again, paywall above the fold, some social proof, benefits, pricing plan again, and then the call to action go unlimited is floating on top of while you're scrolling. Another one right here, this is an old case study, but I love it cuz he went from $200 with A to $1,000 with B with just 15, that's 1 5 downloads a day. 15 downloads a day.

So, if you're getting some traction, really start optimizing the paywall. And when I mean traction, getting some downloads. Here's the last one that I want to share with you. This is a 50% increase in sales just by adding more context. So, you can see even for an app like this that's highly visual where you can create an emoji of yourself, you can see that adding more context to what users are actually get when they pay you increase sales. Number five, make the value obvious. And I'll tell you exactly what I mean. Here it is.

So, sometimes what we've seen is video on paywalls work a little bit better. So, you can see this is an a friend of mine, Momingo, John. He shared this in a live stream where he said, "Look, I started with graphics, Steve, and I was getting 2.5 conversion. Then I put a real person, I got 4.7. Then I added video to show off all the features of my app, and the conversions went up to 6.8 with a soft paywall, by the way, right?

There's an X right here." So, really great job by John. Here's another one case study that we had with another client. So, he copied the Cal AI, and he just launched his A, and I was like, "Wait, what?" That was his paywall. He had the video, and this was his paywall, A. I was like, "But you know, if you hit continue, and he never did, you actually have two other screens after this." And he's like, "Oh, I didn't know that." So, we tested this for his particular app.

We actually saw that the one with the video, the simple one, won. So, really make it obvious what you're getting from the app, from buying. Here's some few other ones that I really like. This is Norton. So, you can see it's more of a features table type of thing that where you get with standard plus and ultimate. Here's another example that I showed you guys from a cleaner app. Again, it's making it obvious you you're using up 47%. Here's how much you can save if you buy premium. And then lastly, Microsoft OneDrive. You can see the different storage sizes you get with each different plan. So, make it super obvious what you're getting. And lastly, make sure this call to action this call to action is above the fold.

All right. And spoiler alert, I'm going to show you guys what call to action works the best. So, stay tuned for that. Number six, test the offer. Seems obvious, but certain category of apps do better with weekly and certain ones do better with yearly. Monthly generally is not as good as you'd imagine. So, here's one. A we actually tested this for a client of ours. These are their exact plans, but this is a Figma. Anyways, you can see A had the yearly, just $10. The month was $1.99. Nobody was buying the $1.99 per month. So, they said, "Let's clean up the paywall and let's just show the $0.99 per year." Once we did that, our sales tanked. So, have some context, right? Have couple of different options cuz with this with A, you can see the true value and the $10 one looks a lot cheaper when I see $1.99 right next to it. Go, sign up for the $10.

B, since $10 was the only option, I was like, "That seems kind of expensive." Bye, right? So, so test the offers, what you're showing. I generally like to have two or three. Three generally has the best conversion rates, but two or three is just fine. Here's another case study for one of our apps. We launched with A, again, we were getting downloads, but and we were getting start trials, just people were not converting.

So, what we did was move the trial from the yearly. The prices are the same, it's $50 a year or $6.99 a week. We moved the trial from a 7-day yearly to a 3-day weekly and then sales 3x with similar amounts of downloads. So, that's what What mean by testing your offers? Having different options, but also offering different packages and putting the free trial. Now, you don't always need the free trial, but for most apps, apps convert better with the free trial. All right? And lastly, test your call to action. So, let me show you some case studies. Here it is. Here's the first one. Now, this is a lifetime plan, so it's a one-time in-app purchase.

Get all features unlock. So, you want to guess which one won? Go ahead. Put it in the comments below. Hit pause. Leave a comment below. I'll do something special for somebody. All right? It was number four. Unlock lifetime insights. You see that one had the highest trial activations. People like unlocking stuff cuz it feels like ooh, right? Versus just get all features. Here, take it. And usually everything works pretty well, too.

Unlock lifetime insights. It's a lifetime plan. They know that they just have to pay once and they get it forever. So, it sort of makes it the price look a little bit cheaper than anything else. Also, continue versus subscribe worked a lot better for our clients. So, I love continue. It generally does pretty well on iOS, but start free trial works better on Android. So, continue for iOS, start free trial on Android. And continue worked better than start free trial on iOS. Okay? And a bonus tip for those who've made it this far in the video.

All right? I'm saving one of my best for last. The more paywall views you can get, the more money you are going to make. It is roughly around eight paywall views that you start to see diminishing returns. All right? So, keep showing your paywall. Here's what I mean. Here's one of the apps that we worked with. It's a fitness app. These are the Figma files. They have onboarding questions like most fitness apps. Then they ask you to sign up. Then they ask you to pay. Now, notice it's a hard sign up, meaning you can't skip this, and it's a hard paywall, no, meaning you can't skip that either. All we did was flip the two. We showed the paywall before the sign up. And guess what happened? We saw the paywall views go up from 40 to 94% because 60% of the people were dropping off right here on the sign up screen. Right? So, the paywall views went up from 40 to 94%, which mean more paywall views equal, guess what? More

money. 190% increase in trial activation, and the best part is a 52% increase in sales. That's where the money's at. And lastly, I know what you developers are thinking. They're like, "Steve, but how will I know this user if they pay me?" Look at what Calm does. So, after I start my free trial, I cannot do anything else but sign in. So, if Calm can do it, I know you smart developers can do it as well. Get the users to at least start a trial and then ask them to sign up.

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And if you're an indie developer and you're looking for a community where you can grow and learn and connect with me, well, go to appfounders.co. That's two places [music] how you can best connect with us after this video. At masters.com, if you want us to do the work. Appfounders.co, if you want to learn how to do the work and be a part of an amazing community with [music] over 100 app founders worldwide. All right, until next time.

I'll see you on the next video. >> [bell]