I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi is AI Pricing to help you show the right paywall to each user to increase LTV by 30-50%. Learn more →

Welcome to our Onboarding Library.

All 100% free.

Ever-growing and evolving.

Only top apps. (okay, well, mostly top apps)

And only you have access to this right now!

Why?

Because you’re a loyal Retention.Blog reader. Lucky you.

It’s only going to be ungated for a week or two while it’s still in Beta.

We have 83 different onboarding flows and paywalls

And this number will only grow as we add more

This all came from my personal library of recording apps.

But I needed a better organization and tracking system. And a faster way to make screen shots and analyze them.

So I built it!

Right now, it’s screenshots with annotations on some pages from the onboarding.

We also added sorting and tagging, but it’s still somewhat basic today.

We’ll keep on adding new apps, and recording new versions for existing apps.

And it will always be free.

Please, please, please, give me feedback

Respond to this email, send me a message on LinkedIn or X

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Go to my LinkedIn here and like, comment, or share my posts.

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I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi is AI Pricing to help you show the right paywall to each user to increase LTV by 30-50%. Learn more →

Is a plant identifier app one of the most successful apps ever?

PictureThis is a plant identifier app that has made $17m the past two months, and nearly half a billion dollars over its lifetime.

Courtesy of Appfigures

We must be able to learn something from an app doing $17m a month, right?!

Lesson 1: People want results FAST

In one of their early onboarding screens they talk about the core value and a quantifiable amount of time it’ll take to get results.

Think about it, most people are probably looking a plant and want to try to find an answer immediately to their question of, “What’s the plant?”

Understand where and when users are coming to your app.

Lesson 2: Sell the benefit

The headline is, “Keep your plants thriving”

This is the benefit and is rightly the headline. “Personalized watering, light, and feeding tips” is kind of the feature. Benefits, not features in your marketing,

🤩 Lessons From Reviewing 100+ Web Funnels

Andrey Shakhtin, founder and CEO of FunnelFox, explains why web subscriptions convert and monetize better than the app store, how to stand up a minimum viable web-to-app test, and the payment risks that can freeze your revenue once you scale.

Listen or watch on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts:

• Youtube ➡️

• Spotify ➡️

• Apple Podcasts ➡️

  Watch Today

Lesson 3: Reassure people you can solve their problems

I’ve got a problem and I’m looking for a solution if I’m downloading your app.

Make me confident you can solve it!

Lesson 4: Add Social Proof

You say you can solve my problems, but how can I be sure? Social proof is one of the best ways to add trust to your product

Lesson 5: Give data on why you’re better, or why your app will work

To convince someone, start with emotions first, and then back it up with data and logic.

After you’ve got someone excited that you can solve their problem, and you’ve built some trust, bring in the numbers! At this point, the person wants to believe and they’re open to listening.

We make emotional decisions as humans, and then we find ways to rationalize our emotional decisions.

Lesson 6: More social proof…

You thought you were done with the social proof?! Think again!

Seriously though, more reassurance and trust building from other people is usually powerful.

We’re social creatures, so we’ll follow what other people are already doing.

Lesson 7: Test new pricing and packaging

PictureThis is using this new “Design your trial” paywall style where you’re able to show annual plans with multiple options and give people the feeling of choice.

Lesson 8: Make sure people experience the “Aha!” moment

PictureThis does something really cool here.

They simulate the core value moment of the app immediately after the paywall.

Instead of you need to have your plant ready to scan, they show you exact process, and make you tap through it, so you can understand exactly how it all works.

You experience the value with essentially 0 effort.

Honestly, I’m a bit surprised they don’t do this before the paywall, but I bet they’ve tested it.

Lesson 9: Ask people to pay multiple times

If you don’t convert on the first paywall, they have quite a few other paywall prompts, and premium features that trigger a new paywall.

Check out the “Pay what you want” slider here. It’s not actually a sliding scale on price, it just goes to different plans:

• 7 day trial thats more expensive

• 30 day trial that costs $1

• Discounted annual plan with direct purchase

If it works for one of the largest apps in the world, it may work for you…

Lesson 10: Keep on adding more value for your users

You may think PictureThis is just a plant identifier, but they’ve added tons and tons of new features and value. This is the core part of any great subscription business.

What was your favorite lesson? Let me know in the comments.

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi is AI Pricing to help you show the right paywall to each user to increase LTV by 30-50%. Learn more →

Opal launched a redesign of their app experience

They focused on creating more of a “chat-based” experience for new users with a much more conversational flow.

It’s not a true chatbot conversation, but feels like there is real “back and forth”

Will chat-based LLMs cause a larger shift in UX in the market?

Will new user experiences become mainly chat-based?

I’m not sure, but I know if a few big apps see strong performance with a chat-like flow, everyone will copy and follow along.

Let’s look at what’s changed.

People leave on the very first screen of your app, so what’s your hook?

Opal has a fun UX interaction of tapping and breaking apart a rock to find your “Opal”

Your very first goal when someone opens your app is to convince them to proceed to the next screen.

Video:

After that, you can start explaining and selling your product more.

💡Tip: Not enough people optimize the first screen of their new app experience. If 30% of new app opens/new installs never start onboarding, small wins there can have a big impact down-funnel.

Opal now moves into their new chat-based onboarding UX:

• Whats your name?

  

• Are you new to the app?

• What matters most to you?

• How old are you?

  

• What best describes you?

  

• What’s your average screen time per day?

It’s an interactive style that forces the user to interact with your product more vs the standard onboarding quiz style, where someone can just “tap, tap, tap” and not read anything.

Should you test this as a new style for your onboarding / pre-paywall experience?

My take:

Yes, but only if you have a short enough flow.

It will get exhausting if you have a 50 page onboarding flow. But if there are like 5-10 questions I need to answer, you may be able to make a more dynamic and interactive experience.

And then obviously weave in some AI personalization.

🤩 Learn from a Hybrid Monetization Master

Cristian Rotari, Monetization Lead at Zing Coach, explains why hybrid monetization is more than bolting ads onto a subscription app, how to layer in-app purchases, affiliates, physical products, and partnerships without cannibalizing your core revenue, and when an app is actually ready to start.

Listen or watch on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts:

• Youtube ➡️

• Spotify ➡️

• Apple Podcasts ➡️

Listen Today

Opal Permissions

Old:

New:

These are updated slightly, but I believe not enough apps use this style of pre-prompt for permissions.

Showing the user exactly where you need them to press.

If you need multiple permissions, I think this is one of the best styles.

If you only have to ask for push permission, I almost think you should just prompt immediately via the native prompt and most people will accept

Then Opal uses the standard screen time interface to select the apps you want to block or not.

Opal aha moment

If you focus on anything in your pre-paywall experience, it should be an “aha” moment to communicate the value of your experience.

I think Opal could likely strip away everything else in their flow, just show these numbers, and probably have a similar effect and conversion rate.

Old:

“Jacob, Opal will get you back 5 years of your life”

wow. that’s a lot!

Also, see the 2nd bullet is personalized because I selected Sleep as my goal originally

Paywall time!

Opal starts with the first screen in their paywall flow focused on value props and social proof. And also mentions the free week trial.

Then, they ask the user about the trial reminder. Asking someone to select the day they would like their trial reminder gets them to think about the fact that they will get a reminder and to decrease immediate trial cancellations.

Then we see the somewhat standard trial timeline paywall.

Except the trial timeline is focused on activation and engagement in the product, not the trial/subscription lifecycle.

Interesting.

And check out the products.

They’re using the paid trial approach.

My experience here:

• I’ve seen/heard that only a small percentage of users purchase the paid trial

• But it moves the choice from purchase/no purchase to, “What trial type should I select?”

But that’s not all!

If you don’t convert on the initial paywall, they surface another offer of a monthly plan - at $19.99!

Pricey. But it does have a 1 week trial.

Post-Paywall

After the paywall we go into an activation flow that reference the goal I selected originally.

This is some nice personalization

But I think Opal is pretty poor post-paywall.

They just start blocking apps you selected and I don’t really understand to customize.

They don’t teach me how to customize for my needs.

Maybe they have a goal for “1st time screen blocks” and so this is optimizing towards getting more people to experience the screen block, but I was quite frustrated by trying to figure out how to change anything.

It automatically started blocking apps, and then after it had started, it took me forever to understand how to disable/change the settings. 🤷‍♂️

What do you think of their new experience?

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi helps you show the right paywall to the right user to increase LTV by up to 70%. Learn more →

“You need to try web subs!!”

I’m sure you’ve heard this quite a bit recently.

Especially if your app’s main market is in the US.

How should you test and validate this approach?

Here’s a super fast tactic that should be pretty low lift.

Create a simple sale campaign

A one off sale campaign is a great way to validate and test new strategies

• You can get a higher number of users exposed quickly be sending a blast like this

• It’s low risk. If it doesn’t work well, it’s usually much lower revenue risk than changing your first paywall

Use your push notifications or email to trigger an in-app message

You can trigger an in-app message via CRM platforms, or building in your app, but it’s often way faster to launch a test this way

You don’t necessarily need to trigger the in-app message from a push notification, but it allows you to drive a larger audience to your app.

Flo uses this scratch off tactic to improve conversion and engagement

Obviously, this takes more development, but I see them using it on every sale campaign, so try it out. (tactic is independent from app2web)

🤩 Best of Price Power Podcast!

12 guests. 16 clips. One hour of the most tactical advice from the past six months of the Price Power Podcast.

Guests featured: Alice Muir, Daphne Tideman, Ekaterina Gamsriegler, Michal Parizek, Barbara Galiza, Ashley Black, Shumel Lais, Marcus Burke, Lucas Moscon, Gabe Kwakyi, Xavier De Baillenx, and Anthony Scarpaci.

Listen or watch on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts:

• Youtube ➡️

• Spotify ➡️

• Apple Podcasts ➡️

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Flo then shows a paywall, but you don’t need to

You can trigger the in-app payment sheet directly from a deep link from your in-app message.

Now it may be faster for you to just show a paywall, than develop the capabilities to trigger an in-app payment directly, but this is up to you.

The key with app2web is that you also need to offer a way for users to subscribe via IAP. And show this offer alongside without misleading users.

Then we can trigger a Stripe checkout page.

Flo doesn’t use Stripe here and has a custom setup, but the fastest way for you to get a test live is with a 3rd party payment provider that has checkout pages you can link to.

Two other options:

• Fastspring

• Paddle

Here you can see their in-app payment sheet. As I mentioned above, you can trigger these via a deeplink from an in-app message if you build it without creating a whole “paywall”

Another way to test quickly on iOS:

Try iOS Offer Codes:

• https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/manage-subscriptions/set-up-subscription-offer-codes/

You can create an offer code on iOS, generate a URL for this offer, and the link to this URL from your in-app message, which then redirects to the app store to allow them to purchase there without you ever building a new paywall.

So you can:

1. Create a new in-app message

2. That in-app message has two CTA buttons

3. One button is the offer code link

   1. https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id={YOUR_APP_ID}&code={YOUR_CODE}

4. One button links to a stripe checkout page:

https://docs.stripe.com/mobile/digital-goods/checkout

I’ve never tested this Stripe digital good checkout pages, so curious to hear people’s experience.

Fastspring: https://fastspring.com/solutions/mobile-apps/

Paddle:

If you decide to test, let me know how it goes!

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi helps you show the right paywall to the right user to increase LTV by up to 70%. Learn more →

Last week I saw a post on LinkedIn about Tolan’s paywall:

If you don’t know, Tolan is in the “self care pet” category, but has an extremely unique take with your “self care pet” being an alien from another world, and the app has established a connection to another world.

They’ve had some big spikes, and have done close to $800k in the last 30 days.

But if you notice on the paywall, they’re sending users in the US to Apple Pay. So I suspect there is even higher revenue.

Data courtesy of Appfigures

👋 Are you going to MAU Vegas?

Are you looking to have engaging and interesting conversations with subscription app founders and operators?

Do you like good food?

Then, step right up!

Botsi and Day30 are hosting the: Subscription Operators Dinner

We’re approving each request to ensure that you’re deep in the world of subscription apps, and everyone there will have good conversations.

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We have limited spots, so request to join today!

This is a screenshot from Tolan a little over a year ago

Pretty amazing progress in terms of their design. Unfortunately, I don’t have screenshots from the rest of the app, but you can imagine how basic it was not very long ago.

When I explored the app again this week, I was blown away by how much progress they’ve made.

Firstly, when I opened the app again, they triggered “What’s new” cards to show me and get me excited about the progress they’ve made.

If you’re improving your app, make sure people know about it!

Tolan has an amazingly rich animated video onboarding now.

It’s worth downloading the app and going through the experience yourself.

It may cause you to rethink some interaction patterns of what’s possible today.

Don’t want to download and want to watch a full video of my experience? here you go. It’s 9 minutes. But seriously check it out because you can’t hear my voice and the full experience.

First, you start with talking to the “Oracle” who asks you questions for voice prompts, and you speak back to the app.

It records your answers and responds.

You’re having a real conversation with their AI

Then you have a bit of back and forth:

“What are your goals?”

“What could you talk about endlessly?”

and a few more questions.

The experience is extremely smooth and the responses fast.

Check out their whitepaper on how they build this super low latency experience: https://openai.com/index/tolan/

These questions are similar to what standard quiz onboarding flow could use, but the investment is so much higher because you feel like you’re actually having a conversation!

If you’ve never talked with an LLM agent over voice before, it’s a bit odd, but you get used to it.

After you’ve shared some answers, they don’t forget ASO best practices. Ask for a review during onboarding to maximize rating velocity. The ratio of new installs to ratings is an important factor for ASO.

Use tactics that are proven to work, but make it your own!

Tolan uses the “hold to commit” UX popularized by big apps like Headway and Flo, but puts their own twist on it.

Instead of the “commitment prompt” angle, they use it to unlock your Tolan friend. As you’ll see, it is strategically placed before a paywall.

Yes, I’m very creative, I named my Tolan, “Tol Tol”.

Additional investment and personalization to make it feel like my own.

Paywall time!!

So before you actually get to interact and talk with your Tolan, they built some anticipation, and try to convince you to upgrade.

Does this multi page paywall flow look kinda familiar?

It’s similar to a Duolingo paywall flow, but again, they made it their own.

Take inspiration, but you don’t always need to copy exactly.

And here is the actual paywall:

• They default to monthly! (and an expensive monthly)

• Multiple social proof elements

• And most importantly, Apple Pay!

It’s also not a web view, it’s actually Apple pay in-app.

They do have both Subscribe through App Store, and Apple pay options. To my understanding, this is a requirement for offering external payment methods.

And here, you can see the annual option as well.

I wonder if it’s a test defaulting to monthly?

I could see the ARPU being higher with that high a monthly plan, even if they do have high churn. If you get ~3-4 monthly renewals, that’s pretty darn good. And will likely have a higher conversion rate than annual.

And a higher initial conversion rate means more purchase signals to send back to the ad networks.

And they don’t have a trial on monthly! Which means it’s high quality signals, not trial starts.

Something to think about.

If I don’t convert initially, they have a discounted offer.

But it’s actually a different tier!

The have Tolan Lite here, and previously, it was Tolan Plus

It seems like the main difference is 10x chat time vs 30x chat time. So token costs.

And I believe Apple has started blocking showing discounts on the safe offer immediately after the first paywall.

But this is not the same offer, this is a different tier, and so this should be 100% okay.

It’s essentially the exact same thing as a discount offer, but abides by Apple rules.

The level of detail in the early experience is amazing.

I can chat with my Tolan.

I enter into a little house, and then some TV show starts playing on a screen in my house. I have no idea whats happening, but somehow it’s extremely engaging.

Then they do something I love:

Invite a friend!

Obviously, not a new tactic, but rewarded invites are great, and it’s low cost to them (not actual money, just tokens).

Always try to get more free users that you don’t have to pay for via referrals, WOM, etc.

Tolan has so much more to talk about deeper in the app, but the last thing I’ll mention here is their other IAPs:

Users may easily run out of credits if you talk to your Tolan a lot, so don’t miss out on an opportunity to monetize your free users if they hit limits.

With AI powered apps, this is important. You can give away stuff for free, don’t give away too much!

Okay, now the actual last thing!

Motivate users to do important actions and reward them!

Tolan knows scheduling a check-in dramatically improves the likelihood of user coming back.

Motivate them to complete this action with tokens!

They’ve established an in-game currency, that you can buy, or they can reward you with. This is typically a more advanced monetization strategy, but Tolan has pretty large ambitions.

They’re setting themselves up for even more growth in the future.

You need to go check out Tolan. You’re going to be impressed.

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi helps you show the right paywall to the right user to increase LTV by up to 70%. Learn more →

MAU is here!

This is my favorite conference of the year.

Not because it’s in Vegas (but if I win at craps, I don’t mind…), but because it’s a gathering of so many amazing people in one place.

Yes, we all come for the people, but there are also some great sessions happening!

👋 First, I’ve got something exciting. As you may know, I’m the cofounder and CEO of Botsi.

Botsi is going to host a small dinner at MAU for subscription app founders and growth leaders.

If you are interested, could you please reply to this email? Let me know your name and your app, and I’ll follow up with you.

Learn how to monetize AI apps

Alice Muir (now an independent consultant), who has worked with Headspace, VSCO, Adobe, SoundCloud, and MyFitnessPal, explains why "higher engagement equals lower profit" is the new reality for AI apps, how to use strategic friction without choking activation, and why most consumers don't actually care that your app is AI-powered.

Listen or watch on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts:

• Youtube ➡️

• Spotify ➡️

• Apple Podcasts ➡️

4 sessions at MAU Vegas I'm not going to miss:

1️⃣ 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗙𝗮𝘀𝘁-𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝘀 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲

Panel with founders from Innertune, Brainrot, and Tolan, moderated by Lucas Moscon (Appstack). New paid ad campaign types, UX customization tied to acquisition source, and a unified attribution framework.

❓ This is for you if: You want tactical UA advice.

Side note, check out this post from Vivek Girotra on Tolan’s paywall: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vivekgirotra_paywall-from-the-tolan-app-every-ugcPost-7458228823592046592-w-I

I think I need to do a breakdown on Tolan soon!

2️⃣ 𝗢𝘄𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜

Lucas Lovell (Paddle) and Phil Carter (Elemental Growth) on the monetization gaps that happen between surfaces, tools, and teams. Where users drop off between web and in-app, and how the best teams are using AI to close those handoff leaks. Case study format, not theory.

❓This is for you if: You're looking for innovative monetization advice

3️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸... 𝗨𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗺

Steve P. Young (App Masters) going deep on the monetization and growth tactics top apps are quietly using right now. Meta ads and ASO played unconventionally, pairing monetization with distribution, bending platform rules without breaking them.

❓ This is for you if: You want real strategies that are working today across monetization and UA

4️⃣ 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗣𝗟𝗚 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗟𝗚: 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗡𝗼𝗶𝘀𝘆 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱

Andy Carvell🔜MAU Vegas (Phiture) and Jeff Roberto (Splice) on signal-led growth. How to identify and activate the right user signals across paid, organic, and product touchpoints.

❓ This is for you if: You're drowning in data but starving for signal, this one's for you.

(P.S. anything with Andy is can't miss)

P.S. don't forget about the:

How Giants Scale Kickoff Summit to scale past $10m ARR

And I've got discounts! Promo code good for $100 off: RTBMAU26

The person speaking at 10:35 am looks pretty cool….

See you in Vegas May 19-21.

If you're going, let me know which sessions are on your list!

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi helps you show the right paywall to the right user to increase LTV by up to 70%. Learn more →

Missed the first one?

The Simply apps have so much going on, I couldn’t fit it all in one newsletter!

Today, we’ll do a macro analysis of all the apps.

And then we’ll to look at Simply Piano’s web 2 app flow versus their in-app flow.

We don’t have a lot of time, so enough waxing poetically, let’s get started.

Full cross-app synthesis: the Simply playbook

Now with all four apps, here’s the shared framework:

The universal skeleton

Every Simply app runs this sequence:

1. Brand/landing frame (length varies by buyer psychology)

2. Account/profile setup (with multi-profile framing baked in early)

3. Attribution question (position varies by completion rate testing)

4. Identity ritual (name, signature, avatar, household type — app-specific but always present)

5. Age question framed as adaptive content, never demographics

6. Motivation/goal multi-select (emotional + functional JTBD harvest)

7. Skill self-report or probe (Piano uses both)

8. Practice frequency commitment (foot-in-the-door)

9. Equipment check with escape hatch (preserves funnel for no-equipment users)

10. Magic demo (the core AI/feedback loop, proven live)

11. Value delivery (actual lesson content or assessment before paywall)

12. Emotional completion beat (celebration, medal, confetti, identity reveal)

13. Paywall with individual/family toggle, 12-month anchor with discount %, monthly decoy, free trial on the anchor

Curious about signal engineering and mobile measurement?

Shumel Lais, co-founder of Day30 and previously founded Appsumer (acquired by InMobi), explains why most subscription apps feed ad platforms the wrong goal, how precision and recall reshape signal selection, and what a realistic measurement maturity ladder looks like in 2026.

Listen or watch on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts:

• Youtube ➡️

• Spotify ➡️

• Apple Podcasts ➡️

The five pillars of the playbook

Pillar 1: Frame every data ask as user benefit.

Age = adaptive content. Genre = personalized songs. Goals = tailored journey. They never ask for data without a framed-as-value reason. No app says “we need your age for demographics” — it’s always “your age impacts your vocal range / learning pace / experience.”

Pillar 2: Build commitment through ritual before asking for money.

Signatures, avatars, vocal range reveals, chord recognition, drawing detection, piano note detection. The user has done something real before they see a price. The sunk cost is psychological, not monetary.

Pillar 3: Prove the tech works live.

Every app has a “magic moment” where the AI/CV does something obviously impressive with the user’s real input. This is not optional in the Simply playbook. It’s the single biggest differentiator from competitors that just paywall a course library.

Pillar 4: Family plan is a portfolio strategy, not a pricing lever.

The household question (Piano), family profiles (all four), and “All Simply Apps” bundle (Guitar, Piano) are coordinated. They’re not trying to upsell individual users to family — they’re using the individual paywall to educate about the family plan’s value. LTV on a family plan across the portfolio is probably 3-5x individual.

Pillar 5: Backload the paywall, frontload the value.

Piano’s annotation confirms what the others imply: the intro lesson, skill probe, and magic demo all happen before the paywall. By the time the user sees a price, they’ve already experienced the product and built an emotional narrative about their progress.

The magic demo is the most important shared pattern across all four apps, and I didn’t say enough about it in Part 1 of the newsletter.

Every Simply app has a moment — before the paywall — where the app’s core technology performs on the user’s real input:

• Sing: the vocal range test. You hum and shout into the mic. The app tells you you’re a “Bass” and shows you famous bass singers.

• Guitar: chord preview and strum recognition with real-time feedback.

• Draw: take a picture of your drawing. The AI detects and grades it.

• Piano: connect your phone to your real piano, play a key three times, the app confirms “we can hear you perfectly.”

This is not the same as a free first lesson. A free first lesson shows you the content. The magic demo proves the technology.

Any skepticism the user had about whether a phone app can actually teach them music/art got destroyed by their own experience with it.

If your product has real-time feedback, AI magic, or smart detection — make the user experience it before you ask them to pay.

20 minutes is the portfolio-standard outcome claim

Guitar: “You’ll be playing a song with these chords in about 20 minutes!”

Piano: “You’ll be reading and playing these notes in about 20 minutes!”

“20 minutes” is a tested threshold. Long enough to feel real. Short enough to feel painless.

Pick your version of 20 minutes. Whatever your product is, what can the user credibly achieve in 20 minutes of first use?

Put that number on the screen.

What’s different by app (and why)

A few things worth calling out:

Sing opens with problem-agitation. Guitar opens with aspiration. People who want to sing are often insecure about their voice. People who want to play guitar are excited hobbyists. Meeting people where they are.

Draw opens with a teacher video. Because the buyer is a parent, not the user. Parents want to trust the teacher, not be sold to.

Piano’s landing is the whole portfolio. Because it’s the flagship — the front door for the whole business.

Attribution position varies. Sing frontloads “how did you hear about us?” to screen 1. Guitar pushes it 8 screens in. Draw puts it after a full identity ritual. Piano lands in the middle.

One last pattern to remember

Simply’s paywalls don’t work because the paywalls are well-designed (they really aren’t).

They work because by the time you see them, you’ve already played your first notes on your real piano.

The sale happens before the paywall.

The paywall just collects.

WEB FUNNEL TIME!!

Web Funnel

When I look at their Facebook ad library, they have the majority of ads leading to web, so this has to be a major acquisition driver for them.

Web:

Mobile:

• On web, we need hook them, and hook them fast, so we want super simple questions to get them to make some investment

• On mobile, they’ve already downloaded the app, so it’s okay if the first thing we do is ask them to create an account or profile

  • And they do tell you they adapt to your age, so it doesn’t feel like a creepy question

Web:

Mobile:

You can see on web, they need to do more selling and motivated with awards, social proof, and more.

On mobile, they don’t seem to make as much effort on “Selling” and focus on asking questions to show personalized value.

^ These two screens are important to review - they ask a question about your knowledge and experience. Then follow up convincing that you’ll get value fast!

This is the exact format they use in other apps (Simply Guitar):

People need to know they get results quickly.

Web:

• “Do you have a piano or a keyboard

• “Do you have any previous experience playing piano?”

• “No worries you’re in the right place!”

• “What kind of learning style do you enjoy?”

• “How often do you estimate you’ll practice?”

• “Every learner starts somewhere different”

• “Unlock new possibilities with the Simply Method”

• “What would you like to achieve?”

• “Awesome choices!”

You can see with the web flow, Simply Piano does a lot of:

• Ask a question

• Follow up with reassurance and/or positive encouragement

As opposed to mobile, it’s very tactical to get the info they need to personalize your experience.

The web flow as about 27 screens, while the mobile only around 15 because you actually start experiencing the product.

On web, you need to create more engaging flow since it’s so easy for someone to leave. It’s easy to leave on mobile as well, but your use has already taken the time to download the app, so they must have some level of higher intent.

From ’s Growth Gems:

Growth Gems

💎 Growth Gems #96 - Acquisition & Monetization: Web to app

This is a free newsletter where I share the key insights from the best webinars, podcasts, panels, and talks on growth...And dive deeper! Try it below👇…

Read more

3 years ago · 6 likes · Sylvain Gauchet

Before you just go diving into a web subscription flow, this has tons of useful info to think about in terms of pros and cons.

Next steps in the web flow:

Back to mobile UI:

• You can see that they still ask some of the same questions across both flows, but the order of the questions is often different

On the web side, they still have like 10 screens and the paywall and then you have to download the app to truly experience the product.

Simply Piano on mobile doesn’t waste much time and gets right into!

The number one message from Part 1 of exploring Simply is:

Show value early and get users invested before the paywall!

The showing of value on mobile is much easier because you’re already in the product!

Okay, here is the web flow:

As you can see, Simply has to try much harder to show value in the onboarding before you even see the product.

I think they likely do a good job of this based on the scale of their business, but this requires a longer onboarding.

and the web paywall:

When we look at the mobile version, it feels like they’re not even trying to convert you.

But then we get into the actual product.

They’ve invested in a very strong experience, and high quality video.

High quality video or animations can much such a large difference in terms of perception of your product.

Similar to the other products, Simply Piano invests in the following formula on mobile:

Step 1: Create a truly valuable and great product.

Step 2: Create a simple onboarding flow with simple personalization

Step 3: Give people the first lesson free

Step 4: Lock subsequent lessons behind a paywall

Here’s the updated formula

The Part 1 formula was good. Here’s what Piano adds:

1. Create a truly valuable and great product

2. Focus the product on one core use case

3. If you have multiple apps, use the biggest one as the portfolio front door

4. Ask about household composition early to pre-commit to family plan later

5. Create an onboarding flow with simple personalization

6. Use a skill probe, not just a skill question

7. Sell users that they’ll receive value quickly (~20 minutes)

8. Add high-quality video as part of onboarding

9. Prove your tech works with the user’s real input before the paywall — this is the magic demo

10. Give people the first lesson free

11. Personalize the first lesson to their level

12. Create high-quality interactive experiences that keep people engaged

13. Turn the paywall into a multi-screen sales sequence, not a single price page

14. Show individual and family side-by-side, with family offering obvious extra value

15. Lock subsequent lessons behind a paywall

16. Price the app as a premium product, because it is

So what did we learn?

If you have a great product, don’t be afraid to let it shine.

You don’t need to convert everyone in your onboarding funnel, you can let them experience the product, and then ask them to pay for once they understand the value.

But web 2 app is different than mobile onboarding. You may need to sell a little harder than you’re used to in web subscription flows.

Here is a Whimsical board with all the screenshots →

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi helps you show the right paywall to the right user to increase LTV by up to 70%. Learn more →

Learn how Simply Sing, Guitar, and Draw, follow a formula to create a huge app business

Before we get there, I need to apologize. It’s been multiple weeks since I’ve sent a newsletter. I feel guilty because it’s not the promise I made to subscribers when they signed up.

I’ve been doing this for over 2 years, have written 100+ newsletters, and written one nearly every week.

I moved last weekend and life has been a bit crazy, but I’m going to try to do better.

Thanks for being here.

Onward!

To get back in the game on the right foot, I looked at Simply LTDs apps:

• Simply Sing - $500k/mo

• Simply Guitar - $1M/mo

• Simply Draw - $1M/mo

And somehow I didn’t look at Simply Piano which is doing $3M/mo

And this is only looking at in-app purchase revenue!

I see a lot of their ads going to a web subscription flow: https://join-piano.hellosimply.com/start/motivationsIntro

Wow. I’d be they’re doing millions per month via web2app as well.

Clearly they know something.

Here is their formula:

Step 1: Create a truly valuable and great product.

Ah, yeah, sorry to burst your bubble. If you’re new here, this isn’t a get rich quick newsletter.

The rest of the strategies they use for Simply Guitar, Piano, Draw, and Sing aren’t going to work for you if there isn’t real substance behind your product.

Step 2: Create a simple onboarding flow with simple personalization

Step 3: Give people the first lesson free

Step 4: Lock subsequent lessons behind a paywall

So why does this work? Because during “Step 3” when people are exploring the app, they get tons of value, make progress on what they’re looking to accomplish, and trust that the app will deliver because of what they’ve done so far, so they’re happy to start a trial or pay.

This is the perfect time to talk about Daphne Tideman’s Price Power Podcast episode on Activation

Daphne Tideman, growth advisor and consultant for subscription apps, explains why most retention problems are actually activation problems, how to distinguish vanity activation metrics from ones that predict real retention, and why the aha moment should start in your ads, not just your product.

Listen or watch on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts:

• Youtube ➡️

• Spotify ➡️

• Apple Podcasts ➡️

But my goal is to bring you insights you can apply today, so let’s get down to business.

You have a decent product, but how do you convince people of that?

Create a simple personalized onboarding flow

I skipped a few screens, but this is the gist of it

• Screen 1: “Become a guitar player”

  • Benefits not features, be exciting, aspirational, and emotional

  • “In a matter of minutes…” pair that with fast value and you have a winning combo

• Screen 2: “What of guitar?”

  • Ask the necessary questions to correctly personalize

  • This also removes doubt: “Now I trust they can help me learn with my specific guitar”

• Screen 3: “What would you like to achieve?”

  • Connect the reason for trying this back a person’s motivations

  • It helps you personalize the experience, but also helps them feel heard

• Screen 4: “What kind of music?”

  • Allows you to recommend music they actually want to play!

  • Make it easy on your users, don’t fo rce them figure it all out themselves

• “Do you know how to play these chords?”

  • Simple question to assess experience

• “You be playing a song in 20 minutes…”

  • Reinforces that they’ll make progress fast. Nothing is more demotivating than downloading, an app, getting excited, and then realizing it’s going to take days or weeks before progress

• “….play 3 times per week…

  • Make fast progress, but also if you stick with it, you’ll learn a lot over the next 30 days

  • Reassures people they’ll be able to accomplish their goals

• “How often do you plan on playing?”

  • Again, reinforces that it’s not a huge lift to learn

  • But also, gets people to start thinking about how this fits into their life and commit to a habit

• “How did you hear about us?

  • A extremely helpful question for scaling growth, learn more on that here:

And then into the loading screen!

Looks I have a newsletter for that too…

But the real meat and potatoes are letting your users experience value before asking to pay.

Sometimes you can do this during onboarding, but Simply sees that getting users to actually experience the product is the best way.

They don’t have a 50 screen onboarding flow, they have a few questions, and then get you into the first lesson.

And they’ve created extremely high quality video production to accompany every lesson.

This paywall is also not just a static design.

There is a long audio voice over that talks through all the lessons, the value, and sells you on Simply Guitar.

Simply Guitar is an audio related product, so it makes sense to have audio that is selling you.

Let’s update our formula a bit:

1. Create a truly valuable and great product.

2. Focus this product one core use case

3. Create a onboarding flow with simple personalization

4. Sell to users that they’ll receive value quickly

5. Add high quality video as part of the onboarding

6. Give people the first lesson free

7. During this first lesson, get people to experience value fast

8. Personalize this first lesson or first experience to cater to their needs or experience level

9. Create high quality interactive and dynamic experiences that keeps people engaged

10. Lock subsequent lessons behind a paywall

11. Price your app is a premium product, because it is!

This is getting a bit long - what if I follow up with 2nd newsletter this week that break down the rest of what they’re doing in the other apps?

I’ll also include their web2app conversion flow.

Alright, sounds good, I’ll talk to you again soon

If you can’t wait, here is a Whimsical board with all the screenshots →

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi helps you show the right paywall to the right user. Learn more →

Restock your paywall test queue

Let’s take a look around the industry to see what’s been working well.

Test 1: Design your trial

I’ve seen this working for a few different apps.

Essentially, you’re allowing users to pay for a longer trial.

I think the main affect here is psychological.

People end up starting the trial at a higher rate, and a small percentage of people buy the long trial, but it’s more they feel like they have a choice, and it all goes to annual.

Typically, what apps are doing is removing the monthly option and adding this longer trial in place of it.

If you have poor monthly renewal rates, this can be quite viable. If you don’t, it may be slightly trickier to make the revenue work.

🚨 New Price Power Podcast:
Churn is the silent killer of your subscription growth

Dan Layfield (Codecademy and Uber) teaches us his Four Horsemen of Churn.

What you’ll learn:

• Why your Stripe retry settings are probably wrong and how to fix them in 10 minutes

• How to calculate your growth ceiling using churn rate and acquisition numbers

• Why payment receipts might be reminding users to cancel every month

• How to price annual plans based on your monthly retention data

• How to build cancellation flows that save 20% of churning users

Listen or watch on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts:

• Youtube ➡️

• Spotify ➡️

• Apple Podcasts ➡️

Test 2: Lottery Scratch Card UI

I’ve seen this a few times now.

Essentially, you have a “scratch card” type design, and users can tap/move their finger a few times to reveal the discount.

You can show the offer here, or just have them tap to redirect to the paywall to see the offer.

It’s likely going to perform better to get someone excited here, and then redirect to your discount offer.

Test 3: Add a “Forever” discount

People like locking in a discount. You can get them excited with a “forever” offer.

This is a smaller test and faster copy only test, but I’ve seen it being used by quite a few apps today, so I’m confident it has something to it.

• Show the discount compared to your normal offer

• Position it as time sensitive or a one-time offer like you see here

• Communicate to your users they can lock in this discounted price forever.

That’s all for now folks!

Let me know if any of these tests are winners for you.

📣 Want to help support and spread the word?

Go to my LinkedIn here and like, comment, or share my posts.

OR

Share this newsletter by clicking here.

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I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Wow. We’ve been working on this for months and this point.

And I’m so proud of what we’ve been able to create.

Welcome to the 48 Laws of Subscription Apps.

Learn from app growth leaders Thomas Petit, Sylvain Gauchet, Cristian Rotari, Daphne Tideman, Marcus Burke, Vahe Bagdasaryan, Olga Berezovsky, and more.

Botsi partnered with Retention.Blog to bring you 48+ tried and true lessons, patterns, strategies, and tips.

This book is grouped into four chapters:

1. Onboarding & Early Experience

2. Paywalls & Monetization

3. Retention, Engagement & Lifecycle

4. Analytics, Segmentation & Testing

We have 48 different lessons and learnings for you from the past year.

Could you go support this and help me to make sure others see it here:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jacob-rushfinn_welcome-to-the-48-laws-of-subscription-apps-activity-7440046297983893504-FouH

Since you’re a newsletter subscriber, I obviously don’t need your email again, but we put so much work into this that I would love a like and comment and share if you have a second in your day.

Here is the full book to download →

Ultimately, we have to thank the entire subscription app industry because we’re always learning from all the other impressive companies and apps in the space.

Thank you!

📣 Want to help support and spread the word?

Go to my LinkedIn here and like, comment, or share my posts.

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I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi is AI powered pricing and personalized offers for your subscription app.

One of the most impactful levers is always price

The price of your app is intimately connected to your success and ability to grow

Also, this is called Retention.Blog, so we can’t forget about the retention impact of price.

One of the best ways to get someone to stick around and use your app is convincing them to pay!

How do you convince them to pay? Show them the right price.

It’s not true in 100% of cases, but generally, your paying users always have better retention than free users.

Correlation vs causation - did paying cause them to stick around? Or did they see a lot of value and it aligned with their needs so they paid?

Realistically, it’s a bit of both.

Psychologically, by paying, you’re making a commitment to use something. Otherwise, why would you have paid?

What can you try?

Michal Parizek of Mojo wrote a blog post for Botsi, and recorded a podcast for Price Power about all the learnings from his work.

I learned so much from Michal, and I’m pretty sure you will too.

From Michal:

Our success rate for pricing experiments was 56%, compared to only 14% for design, copy, and layout tests. That difference alone explains why we’ve prioritized pricing over everything else. In fact, we ran nearly 40 pricing experiments in the past two years

Listen or watch on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts:

• Youtube ➡️

• Spotify ➡️

• Apple Podcasts ➡️

What is the right sequence of testing and optimization?

Step 1: Get the price right first

Start with your top markets individually (not a global average).

Look at competitor pricing, your conversion funnels, and UA costs per country. If Brazil is way off, fix Brazil. Localization isn’t a later step, it’s part of getting the baseline price right.

This matters more based on your country mix, of course. If you’re heavily concentrated in one country, focus there, and come back to localization later.

But there are likely 3-6 countries that are important for you, understand what the right price should be in each of them

Step 2: Optimize packaging / subscription duration.

Once you’re confident the price is roughly correct, figure out which plan length (yearly, monthly, weekly) drives the most long-term value, and then optimize share toward that plan.

This includes testing the ratio between your yearly and monthly prices.

Michal says that adjusting the monthly price (while holding yearly constant) can dramatically shift behavior toward annual plans.

One of the biggest wins you can do for your app is increasing the percentage of people purchasing annual plans, and making the monthly plan higher can increase the perceived value of the annual plan.

Step 3: Tweak prices with finer precision.

After packaging is set, come back and do more targeted price adjustments.

Try tighter increments now that you know the rough range and the right plan structure.

Your ability to do this well will be dependent on user volume. If you have lower volume, probably skip this until later.

Step 4: Introductory offers and trial optimization.

Test free trial vs. no trial, trial length, selective trials by plan or region, and paid trial options.

Step 5: Paywall design and layout.

Michal was pretty direct that design/copy/layout tests were the lowest priority.

His experience showed only a 14% success rate on those compared to 56% for pricing tests.

That said, the most impactful layout tests were ones that effectively influenced packaging (like hiding the monthly plan behind “View all plans”).

FYI, this isn’t strictly a linear process.

But the core message was: don’t start with paywall redesigns when you haven’t validated your prices and plan structure first.

Image from: Pricing Experiments: The Backbone of Mojo’s Monetization Success

What are other tips and tests we can try?

1. Hide Secondary Plans Behind a “View All Plans” Button

Put the monthly plan behind a separate screen so the yearly plan appears to be the only option.

At Mojo this shifted yearly plan share from roughly 60% to 80% with no meaningful drop in overall conversion. The monthly plan still serves as a decoy that makes the yearly plan look cheaper.

2. Test Wide Price Spreads First, Narrow Later

Don’t test $48 vs $50 vs $52.

Start with big gaps like $40 vs $60 vs $80 to find the rough sweet spot, then run follow-up tests with tighter increments.

3. Use 7-Day Cancellation Rate as an Early Renewal Proxy

Over 40% of subscription cancellations happen in the first 7–10 days.

Track 7-day cancellation rate per variant and use it to project renewal rates and 13-month revenue. This lets you call a winner weeks earlier rather than waiting months for true renewal data.

1. Look at your historical data for the rate of users turning off auto-renew in the first 2 weeks - 1 month

2. Then look at the ending renewal rates for that same cohort of users

3. This should get you ratio of subscription cancellations within the first X days to users who renew at 1 year

4. Then, you can take this and project out for each variant of the users who converted, who will still be paying at year 1

4. Project 13-Month Revenue, Not Just New Revenue

For each test variant, combine new revenue with projected renewal revenue through month 13.

This allows for 1 cycle of annual renewals to be accurately compared with monthly plans.

Michal shared a case where a higher price point won on short-term new revenue but lost on 13-month projections because of elevated cancellation rates. The moderate increase was the actual winner.

5. Test Aggressive Price Increases

Mojo raised yearly prices 50% in the US and Germany with minimal conversion impact. They even tested 100% increases.

But don’t do it blindly, research the market and your conversions rates.

Michal felt this would be okay because prices hadn’t been updated in 2–3 years, competitors charged significantly more, and conversion benchmarks were above average for the category.

6. Localize Prices by Market (Don’t Trust Apple’s Auto-Tiers)

Apple just converts on exchange rates with no purchasing power adjustment.

Research competitor pricing per geo, compare conversion funnels across countries, and factor in local UA costs.

When Mojo dropped prices 25% in Mexico, they saw a 25% lift in new revenue.

7. Anchor the Yearly Price with a Monthly Equivalent

Add a simple line like “equivalent to $X/month” next to the yearly price.

This was a low test at Mojo that had an outsized impact, especially in lower purchasing power regions.

8. Optimize the Yearly-to-Monthly Price Ratio

Many apps default to a 1:7 ratio (e.g., $10/month vs $70/year).

Mojo found that a 1:4 ratio drove significantly more yearly subscriptions while holding overall conversion steady.

Will that ratio be the right one for you? It all depends on your monthly renewal rates.

Dan Layfield has some good thinking here on pricing ratios.

9. A/B Test Free Trial vs. No Trial

At Mojo, removing the free trial for new users hurt conversion.

Test it for your app - one could end up being better for you.

Also, test free trial on an annual, but maybe not on monthly.

10. Test Trial Length: 3-Day vs 7-Day

Mojo found virtually no difference in trial conversion between 3-day and 7-day trials, so they shipped the shorter one because it reduces revenue delay and improves UA payback periods.

11. Offer Trials Selectively by Plan and Region

Mojo only offered free trials on yearly plans (not monthly) as another lever to push annual adoption.

But in Brazil and Mexico, removing the monthly trial backfired. Those markets had the highest share of monthly subs and valued trials more.

Regional exceptions matter more the bigger you get.

12. Test Paid Trials (e.g., 30 Days for $5–10)

At the time of recording, Mojo was actively testing offering users a choice: a short free trial or a longer paid trial (like 30 days for $5–10).

This has started being called, “Design your trial”

One note, it does complicate analysis and requires enough volume to evaluate properly.

13. Use Data-Triggered Discounts Instead of Broad Seasonal Sales

Mojo’s broad Black Friday discount was net negative for new users (who already had high intent) and underperformed in high-purchasing-power markets like the US.

It only worked for existing free users and lower-income regions.

If you’ve run a broad sale campaign in the past, dig into the data about who actually converted, and where the lifts came from compared to your baseline.

Unfortunately, this data is hard to get without actually running a broad sale campaign first one year, and the learning for the next sale.

14. Discount Based on User Lifecycle Stage

By analyzing conversion by user age, Mojo found a clear drop-off around day 30.

Offering a 30% discount at that point boosted revenue per user by 87%.

A second trigger at day 90 with a 50% discount also performed well.

15. Segment Results by Traffic Source

Michal emphasized checking whether your UA channel mix (Meta vs TikTok vs organic) shifted during a test, since different sources bring users with very different intent and price sensitivity.

If your traffic distribution changed mid-test, that can explain weird results.

16. Re-Validate Cohorts 3–6 Months Later

Don’t assume a winner at day 14 stays a winner.

Go back and check those cohorts at 3 and 6 months to see if LTV projections held. Monthly renewal patterns and annual cancellation rates can shift over time.

This one is so important. You make predictions, but you need to monitor real behavior and continually be re-validating your assumptions!

Thank you, Michal!!

This is years of learnings and experiments, so we’re grateful to be able to learn from him.

You can go read the full blog post here:

• https://www.botsi.com/blog-posts/pricing-experiments-the-backbone-of-mojos-monetization-success

And you can watch or listen to the full podcast below on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts:

• Youtube ➡️

• Spotify ➡️

• Apple Podcasts ➡️

Want to get some help with your price optimization?

Botsi is AI-powered dynamic and personalized offers for your subscription app.

Botsi builds and trains custom AI/ML models on your app and your paywalls, to figure out the right offer to maximize LTV for each user.

It doesn’t only sound cool, it works! (and is 100% compliant with Apple and Google)

Botsi combines device data (OS, model, country, etc) with your custom user data, and attribution data, to get high quality signal about the likelihood to pay and convert.

📣 Want to help support and spread the word?

Go to my LinkedIn here and like, comment, or share my posts.

OR

Share this newsletter by clicking here.

Share

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Building a new feature is only half the battle

Getting people to actually use the feature can be harder!

How do you design a product marketing and feature launch plan?

What are the different elements that you need to think about?

If you’re a subscription app, part of the value promise you make to your users is that you’re going to be continually improving the product.

Gone are the days of buying a piece of software on a CD-ROM in box.

If you want people to stay subscribed, they need to feel like they’re getting value.

The tough part is that you can’t only improve the product.

You have to make sure everyone knows that you improved the product!

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi

Botsi is dynamic pricing and personalized offers for your subscription app.

Botsi builds and trains custom AI/ML models on your app and your paywalls, to figure out the right offer to maximize LTV for each user.

It doesn’t only sound cool, it works! (and is 100% compliant with Apple)

Botsi combines device data (OS, model, country, etc) with your custom user data, and attribution data, to get high quality signal about the likelihood to pay and convert.

Click here to learn more →

P.S. Botsi is also my company, so schedule a call, mention Retention.Blog and you’ll get a 15% discount for your entire first year!

Have questions? Send me an email directly at jacob (@) botsi.com

Where do you start with a feature launch?

Before figuring out how you should promote a new feature, you first want to do some thinking and try to answer the following questions:

• Who is this feature for?

• Why did you build this?

• What was the issue before, and what problem does this solve?

• How will you measure success? (and what is success?)

• Do users need to change their behavior, or learn a new way of interacting with your product?

• Is it a big deal? Or a small improvement?

• Depending on your team size, who else should be involved?

• What is the timing? When will people have access? Do they need an app update?

• What is the messaging around this feature?

• What channels and tactics will you use to promote?

Let’s do an example together!

We can look at this new Strava feature together.

Strava rolled out the ability to see if a route requires a road bike or a mountain bike.

I can 100% imagine a world where I see this cool trail, I have my road bike, I drive all the way out and get there, then I get there and it’s all dirt and rough! 🤬

• Who is this feature for?

  • Bike riders

    • Both mountain bike/trail bike riders, and road bike riders

  • Active bike riders, and riders who want to find new places to ride

  • I could see it being for both more casual riders who don’t like being surprised, but also more frequent, active users who like to plan ahead and scout new trails

• Why did you build this?

  • We have a growing audience of bike riders, and we previously only categorized bike trails in general. We didn’t split by bike type.

  • We were getting user feedback that users got half way through a trail and it turned to gravel and they had to turn around

  • Mountain bike riders wanted to go find cool new places to try out, but couldn’t easily differentiate between road and mountain trials

• What was the issue before, and what problem does this solve?

  • Users would either have to do more research outside of Strava to figure out the type of trail, they would ride half way through and then have to turn around, or possibly worse, they would go all the way to some route to ride, but couldn’t because they had the wrong bike

  • The problem it solves is uncertainty around the trail type, surprises when you get there, or having to do extra research outside of Strava on the trail

• How will you measure success? (and what is success?)

  • Success definition: Our bike riders are less frustrated, have a better experience using the app, and use Strava to record more bike rides

  • Metrics:

    • Frequency of bike rides from existing bike riders

    • Monetization:

      • % of existing free bike riders who now start a trial

      • % of users engaging with feature announcement updates who start a trial (versus a baseline or control group)

    • Feature engagement:

      • % of new Strava users using the bike routes

      • % of existing paid bike riders using the “Surface” type toggle in bike maps

    • Retention:

      • Reduction in churn from active bike rides

      • Increase in retention from new/active bike riders

• Do users need to change their behavior, or learn a new way of interacting with your product?

  • There is little behavior change needed as this is a filter on the existing maps feature that users are already using.

• Is it a big deal? Or a small improvement?

  • It’s medium sized for a segment of the audience. Strava is majority runners, so the overall percentage of bike riders is smaller

  • For bike riders, this is a strong quality of life improvement that most will really appreciate

• Depending on your team size, who else should be involved?

  • Copy and design teams to help create marketing messaging

  • Product teams to help deploy in-app messages

  • If email and push notifications are managed by a separate team, involve them

  • Social media manager to create some posts and promotions

  • Customer support to update documentation, and potentially, send an automated update to users who have previously complained

  • Analytics to set up measurement dashboards to track metrics

• What is the timing? When will people have access? Do they need an app update?

  • This will be released for 10% of users first. We’ll test this for a week to ensure there are no unforeseen bugs or issues. If that look successful, this will be rolled out to the entire audience

  • Users will need to update their app to have access

  • There will not be any A/B testing besides the staged roll out.

  • All new users will immediately have access

• What is the messaging around this feature?

  • Users can now see different types of trail

  • Emphasize bringing the right gear

  • Casual tone, that excited, but not too exclamatory since it’s a “medium impact” feature

• What channels and tactics will you use to promote?

  • We won’t send a dedicated email to everyone, but will include this in the next feature release wrap up email. If these was for runners we would, but bikers still only represents 20% of our user base

  • For active biker riders, they’ll receive a dedicate new feature email

  • We’ll send a push notification to active users who have used the bike activity, or new users who haven’t recorded an activity, and are past day 7

    • (We have a strong new user activation flow that we know performs, so we don’t want to get in the way of that)

    • We’ll also trigger an in-app message to this same audience upon their next app launch. The in-app message will expire after 30 days for inactive users

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What she'd do differently:

• 📜 Validate demand with a slide deck before touching the product

• 🤩 Look for "hell yes" reactions at every slide before building anything

• 🤑 Separate features users value from features users will actually pay for

• 📢 Choose first users for feedback quality, not install volume

Watch the full episode here:

Youtube ➡️

Spotify ➡️

Apple Podcasts ➡️

Some of you may be looking at this list above and going, “You want me to do this for every new feature?! I only have 8 people at my company!”

Yes, I understand, obviously, everyone can’t do this for every single update. This means that it’s up to you to decide whats a big enough deal that we want to promotion.

But don’t discriminate too much about what’s worthy. Users want to see that you’re improving your app!

Usually, you can measure retention or usage improvements from people who see or engage with “What’s new?” type messaging.

Also, for the “who else should be involved?” question, it’s likely to be fewer people at most app companies.

Duolingo will show new in-app messages to promote “Whats new” to you.

Look at both Strava and Duolingo’s in-app message copy: short, sweet, and to the point.

Measurement

I want to talk a little bit more about how you measure new feature success.

This is much harder than measuring monetization success because the right numbers aren’t obvious.

Still though, the gold standard for measurement of most kinds is a hold out group.

If it’s a big change, or a controversial feature, then maybe you want to A/B test the whole feature. Or launch for a small percentage of your audience.

Most of the time A/B testing every new feature is a waste of time. It makes you not accountable.

If you’re not able to A/B test everything, you have to hold the product experience and user experience to a higher standard. It’ll make you be more thoughtful and careful about what you release. Which will likely lead to higher product quality.

The exception is features that you think could have an impact on monetization.

Sooo if we’re not A/B testing a feature, how are we measuring results?

A few ways:

• Pre/Post Analysis

  • Did we notice a meaningful change in usage or engagement patterns?

• Cohort Analysis

  • For the cohort of new users who engaged with this feature, do they have different retention or behavior patterns to past new users?

  • For existing users who engage with the feature, does this change their behavior pattern compared to users who do not?

• A/B testing messaging

  • For your target audience who is going to receive promotional messages (email, push, in-app, etc). leave a 10% holdout group who will not receive any marketing messaging. Then you can understand how users who would not have organically engaged with the feature, and were driven there by marketing, whether this had an impact on monetization, engagement, or retention?

But don’t get too obsessed with measuring every single little detail if you’re a smaller app or small team.

If you think it’s making the product better, ship it, let people know about it, and move on.

Instead of taking over your whole screen with an in-app message, they have a takeover with in a specific feature highlighting what’s new for you to try.

This is a very thoughtful approach because it allows you to discover things on your own time, vs. being bombarded at app launch when you may be there for something else.

I’m not an active AllTrails users, so I’m unsure if all users saw this in-app message or only “re-engagers”

Showing the new content you’ve launched or features you’ve added is a great re-engagement tactic to bring people back.

Here’s another part of Strava where they have tooltips showing new features.

Don’t think that one mode of messaging will solve everything for you.

Try to develop a hierarchy of messaging channels that you use at different times and for different purposes.

And for good measure, one last deranged Duo I came across.

They’ve gotten pretty nutty, huh?

Another article for you to check out. I mention “What’s new?” type in-app messages are good for re-engagement.

If that was interesting check out this post I wrote a while back on “re-onboarding”:

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

How do you get featured by the App Store?

Who are these mythical people at Apple that make these decisions?

How do they decide?

How do I get my app featured!?

It used to be a big black box, and the kingmakers at Apple could decide to bless your app and change your life.

App Store features aren’t quite the same impact they used to be, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attempt to get some new free traffic!

First, here is how you actually submit to be featured:

https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/manage-featuring-nominations/nominate-your-app-for-featuring/

These instructions are pretty clear, so I won’t go into the actual steps.

And I forget exactly when this happened, but being able to submit yourself was actually a pretty big deal.

There didn’t used to be any formal process.

The positives are that now anyone can submit.

The negatives are that now anyone can submit…

(this means that you’re competing with a lot of people)

Okay, so how in the world do you actually get featured?

One thing to remember: App Store editors needed content!

There are hundreds to thousands of placements across all the different countries, and they constantly need to feature new apps and releases.

Make their job easy.

Two proven strategies:

• Align with the calendar of seasonal events

• Use new iOS technologies

Seasonal event calendar

You should build out a calendar of all the different events throughout the year that can align with your app:

• International Women’s Day

• Easter

• Pride Month

• Back to School

• World Mental Health Day

• etc.

Build out a calendar of these types of events, and figure out which ones most closely align with your brand. Also, see if you can easily create campaigns around these days that offer exclusive content in your app.

Then, you’ll want to figure out your pitch.

How do you craft a pitch?

A good piece of advice from Talha Mumtaz in the ASO Stack Slack:

Try to find a feature in the App Store today from a similar app. Read through how it’s written, and try to write a brief that’s a similar style.

Think of it like PR, and you’re pitching. If you can write the story for them, it makes their job easier.

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Above is a great example.

Give the App Store editors strong copy to use:

“library of nearly 700 exercises”
“AI-powered routines”

“SmartGym’s AI-powered Smart Trainer (found on the app’s More tab)” ← give the editors direction on where thing are in your app

Highlighting the founder can also be a nice touch. Apple likes to highlight their developers and founders of apps to tell the story around them.

Give some personality to the founder and share the motivation of why they needed to build this product.

So now you have ideas, when should you submit?

In this same thread, Michal Mroz, Head of ASO at ZEN.com, shared some great advice:

• 6-8 weeks ahead normally

• But for big events, 10-12 weeks ahead

This aligns with what I’ve seen as well.

He has another good piece of advice: don’t only align to seasonal events, make sure to share updates, releases, and new features.

There are many different types of features, some seasonal and event based, some just to highlight new apps or features.

If we’re trying to get featured every 6-8 weeks, that’s every 2 months, so aim to have 6-8 “feature worthy” things throughout the year.

Again, think of this like a PR pitch.

This is an exclusive that you’re sharing with the editorial team. Make it sound exciting!

Bonus content! 😮

Applica just shared a phenomenal blog post on the Botsi blog breaking down the specific tactics of how to personalize your paywall to drive incremental revenue

Personalize your paywall →

Now back to the show…

Nastia Radek had a great post a while back giving some advice on pitching and the different types of pitches to think about:

How do In-app Events factor in here?

I’m glad you asked!

One of the best ways to get noticed is to be consistently launching in-app events.

Egor Kunovsky, had a LI post recently talking about the importance of in-app events:

“In-app events are not the tool to increase conversions. They are a tool to list your app for more search terms.”

And he is 100% right. In-app events drive extra visibility in the app store, so you more people can discover your app.

But they also give you additional visibility to the App Store Editorial team!

But don’t think you can just throw anything out there and get featured. I’ve heard the advice from Apple:

“They need to be rooted in actual new content or features. They can't be fluffy.”

So there are two ways to think about this:

1. Every in-app event I release needs to be new content or features

Or

2. Every in-app event I highlight to Apple needs to be new content or features

Because if you look at any big app today, they essentially always have an in-app live. This is easier for them because they have large teams and are constantly releasing new features and content.

I’d aim for somewhere in the middle between those two options.

100% submit to Apple when you have a big, noteworthy release or update, create the in-app event, and then also share the link and ID to that in-app event in your submission.

At a past company I worked at, most of the time the actual value of the in-app event is pretty low ( a few hundred installs), but every few events we would get featured for something

When they were tied to limited time or seasonal events, this would seem to increase the likelihood of a feature.

I also believe that in-app events are a great re-engagement opportunity for users who no longer have your app installed.

When I was looking in the App Store, I saw about 5-8 in-app events from apps that I used to have installed, but don’t anymore.

These were all shown to me first because I saw any IAEs from new apps I hadn’t used before.

The main message: Try to constantly be releasing new in-app events, and for the big ones, call them out to the editors.

Want some more guidance on getting featured? Go get Nastia’s full presentation here:

• Apptweak has another good post here: https://www.apptweak.com/en/aso-blog/how-to-get-your-app-featured-on-the-app-store

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I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

AI App monetization is a new world

I wanted to understand better what some of the top apps are doing today

The Photo and Video category has some heavy hitters at the top of the charts: Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, Canva, Google Photos

But we’re not looking at these, we’re looking at 3 very successful AI focused photo and video editor apps.

The first is HubX’s app, AI Video

It was released last year, but it seems like they really ramped up marketing in January to hit $1.6M in revenue in the last 30 days!

The 2nd is Bending Spoons app, Remini - AI Photo Enhancer

Wow. Around $6.5M in the last 30 days, and nearly $20M over the last 90 days.

And this has been sustained over quite a long time. In Dec 2025 the previous 12-month rolling average was $6.9M per month…wild.

P.S. Remini has some of the most interesting monetization and paywall options I’ve seen in a while. If you’re going to look at anything, check them out.

Last, but not least, is Pose: AI Photo Video Generator

Pose did $2.1M in the last 30 days.

It was also released 12 months ago by the developer “Spark Dynamic” (haven’t heard of them…)

Shout out to Appfigures for all of this data.

HubX - AI Video

AI Video starts with a pretty standard onboarding carousel:

Obviously, all these carousels are video to show the value of the app. And honestly, they’re pretty engaging and entertaining.

Note: See the ATT prompt on the first screen? This is how to get the best performance I’ve heard from many reputable sources.

A few more carousels to swipe through.

Each one shows a picture of you that was uploaded, and then what you can turn it into.

It’s pretty immediately understood by the user what you can do.

This is great.

I give this advice to most people. Show the review prompt before the paywall!

162,000 ratings for an app that is 1 year old. Yes, slightly lower quality rating, but I believe the volume/frequency of rating will outweigh this in terms of ASO.

Before they show the paywall, they show a simple graphic with the trial toggle to clue you in that the trial is enabled.

Interestingly, there is actually no toggle on the paywall.

And it’s not a free trial! You pay $4.99 for a week, then it upgrades at $14.99 for subsequent weeks.

After that, they prompt for push notifications and then we’re into the core app experience of uploading a video and all the different options. I’m not going to go through this process.

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Next up, Bending Spoons’ Remini AI Photo Enhancer

I didn’t expect this from Remini, two heavy screens of legal disclaimers.

Maybe because of legislation around facial recognition they have to do this? And it’s better to get out of the way up front?

Next, we have some simple personalization and two questions:

• Gender?

• What brings you here?

Bye boy. ✌️

I selected Custom AI edits and look at that! That’s what they show me :)

This is super simple, but extremely effective personalization.

“What do you want to use this app for?”

“Cool, here is exactly what you wanted and a visual example of how it works”

This is an example that nearly any type of app can replicate.

Social proof

• Millions of people are doing it, why shouldn’t you??

Labor illusion

• Loading screen to show all the work the app is doing to create a personalized experience for you.

Okay, let’s break down what this paywall is showing:

• A weekly plan for $9.99, with 1 week free trial

• A yearly plan for $79.99, but you have $0.99 for the first month.

And then they have the “Enable free trial” button at the top, but I don’t think it actually changes anything.

It just selects the weekly plan option with the trial.

I’d bet most people end up picking the weekly option.

But if you select the Yearly, you get a generous month for only $0.99.

• Does this help reduce billing issues?

• Does this improve conversion rates because it’s a month out so you’re more likely to forget?

Then we’ve got a few other options if we tap the “Other plans” button.

If we select “Lite”, we get the same 1 week free trial, and $0.99 offer, just at a lower price and with limited features.

Having cheaper options behind a “View all plans” can be helpful for motivated price sensitive users that are willing to explore for a deal.

These were all interesting, but the paywalls in the app are even better.

First, we have additional reinforcement of the value you get personalized based on your selection during onboarding.

If we tap the PRO button on the homepage:

If you look closely, it’s actually pretty similar to the offer from onboarding.

But the positioning is excellent: “We’re offering a free week of AI”

And then they let you design your trial or plan.

It defaults to weekly, assuming if you didn’t convert up front, you’re not quite ready to commit to a longer plan.

And now I can either start paying immediately, start a free trial, or pay $0.99 for the first week.

But instead of being forced to pay, it feels like Remini is offering something special you shouldn’t miss out on.

Then, we can change from Pro to Lite, and also change between weekly and yearly.

On the onboarding paywall, they didn’t offer a free trial for weekly, but here they do!

And there is no $0.99 trial for the Lite plan.

With the Pro and Lite plans it gets a bit complicated, but I love the core of this “Design your plan” paywall.

Last, we’ll look at Pose: AI Photo Video Generator

Kind of similar to Remini!

A gender question, and then asks what you’re interested in.

Unlike Remini, they don’t immediately show the example of what you selected.

They do have a customizing/loading screen to use the labor illusion.

And they also use this trial toggle animation like AI Video!

(hint: if two apps making millions of dollars are doing it, you should probably try it too…)

Then, the paywall!

Sorry if the image is too small for everyone, but we have one plan for $12.99/week with a free day trial.

Pretty straightforward.

But if you pay attention, they do have some personalization based on what you select!

I selected the “Diamond Drop” option (you know me…can’t stop the drip)

And they show the image of that option on the paywall!

Simple personalization wins.

I’ll say it again for those in the back: Ask your user what they want, and then show them that!

After the paywall we have account creation and notification prompt.

Good setup so it doesn’t get in the way of the people seeing the paywall.

Now into the home screen. Pretty standard view of a bunch of image and video options.

Floating bar to “Become Pro”

If you notice, this is a different paywall image.

I didn’t convert on the first paywall, so you shouldn’t show it to me again.

One interesting note: This paywall CTA just says “Start Free Trial” and doesn’t say anything about the trial length.

You can see it’s 3-days, and the onboarding paywall says this on the CTA, so maybe that’s why they got away with it here.

What did we learn?

Make an AI video app about a year ago, and now you’re crushing it, right?

Well, we all know it’s not quite that easy.

So what can we actually take away:

• For most AI apps, you don’t need some long onboarding flow. Get people to value.

• Super simple personalization in the onboarding flow with 1-2 questions can work well

• Weekly plans are the default for AI apps as most people want to try them out

  • Don’t default to long trials because people will use it for a few days and then never pay

  • Weekly plans don’t feel intimidating, so I bet a lot of the revenue from these apps is people forgetting to cancel, or using it for a couple weeks and then canceling

• None of these apps push “credits” too hard.

  • One paywall lists a credit limit, but they’re not too worried.

• Use a “trial enabled” animation to clue people in to the free trial and get them comfortable

• Try a “design your trial” or “Design your subscription” paywall

• Want a lot of reviews? Ask everyone to rate your app before the paywall

Know someone who’d like this post?

Want to see the full UI/UX for these apps? Get the Whimsical here:

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Let’s flap our wings and take a trip through the evolution of Finch

If you don’t know, Finch has grown like crazy over the last year.

They’re a self-care app, where you take care of a little bird to take care of yourself.

$30M+ last year!!

A ton of this is driven by paid UA - 210 active ads on Meta. They also do a lot on TikTok.

But we’re not here for ads, we’re for what happens after the ad!

Perfer a video format? I talk through everything in this newsletter and more here:

Please excuse the wild Youtube thumbnail style. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Click here to watch the full video breakdown of Finch ➡️

What can we learn?

• We’ll start with January 2024

• Then see their onboarding in July 2025

• And we’ll end in the present day, January 2026

Create an engaging hook very early in your onboarding

You have some of the highest drop off rates on your first screen. Figure out a way to engage them, and do it fast.

Finch got this right from the start.

1. Pick a color

2. Hatch a birb!

And throw in a fun little hatching animation.

Not asking for any user info, just a fun and easy interaction, that inserts a bit of personalization.

Next, you select a gender for your “birb”, a name, and a trait.

Finch is building investment in the product, but without you sharing any information on yourself!

I get to build my own little self-care pet.

Tip: Peep the “Shuffle” option. If you have a place where people need to enter a custom response, give them preset options to make it easy.

Interaction is good, but don’t let someone get stuck.

Finch now asks me for my name, but that’s it so far.

They give me choice of what a name means to me and then I get the first real taste of gamification!

By answering a question, I earn points and rainbow stones.

Your onboarding should give people a feeling of what the real product will be like, and this simulates earning things for interaction just like the real UX.

I’m going to skip a few explainer screens and move to the paywall:

After you complete onboarding, they ask for you to pick a goal.

Next, they show the paywall.

In 2024: standard blinkest trial timeline style, 43% discount, for $39.99 per year.

After the paywall, you land on the home screen, and you see your goal you selected.

You tap that goal to earn energy to eventually go on an adventure

It’s honestly pretty damn cool gamification.

Your bird is gone for 8 hours of real time. You have to come back into the app to see what they got. It’s building an instant habit loop.

Finch has phenomenal gamification and habit building.

Now let’s look at what’s changed over the years!

Nearly the entire early flow is the same!

They did move the “What’s your name?” question to close after inputting your birb’s name. This feels more cohesive.

The largest change is they added a whole new series of questions asking information on you!

I don’t believe they actually use this for much personalization, but I’m sure they learned and saw from other brands that when people are able to share information on themselves, they feel the product will be better tailored for them

There is also the time and investment put in through these questions that make people more committed once they see the paywall.

I’m not going to go through all the questions as many of them are pretty standard for health and wellness apps (you can see them all in links below)

We’ll pause and dig in here - these are new also!

They’ve added a loading screen and created a “Starter plan”

This closes the loop and makes you feel like they took into account everything you shared. In reality, these are pretty much the same for everyone.

And if you look back, these are all the same goal options you originally had to choose from. (we’ll come back to this)

They’ve now shifted to a multi-screen paywall!

I recommend anyone who has a trial timeline style paywall test this out.

Why does this work?

• You take the same message you had on the paywall and break it up into bite-sized digestible chunks

• You’re able to emphasize “FREE, FREE, FREE”

• The biggest challenge is people just leaving when they see a paywall because they don’t see it’s a trial, so you can reinforce this message

• And you’re able to mention the trial reminder and discount

• THEN, you reinforce everything one more time on the actual payment screen

If it’s important, don’t be afraid to say it twice because your users won’t read it the first time.

After the paywall:

HDYHAU! Read more on the importance of “How did you hear about us?” here:

Streaks!

Everyone’s gotta have streaks.

Finch is so gamified, it’s almost surprising they didn’t have them before now.

Let’s go back to this goals from above.

You saw how previously, Finch had you select goals, and now they auto-select a bunch of goal in your “plan”

These materialize here and solve a sort of cold start problem.

If a user didn’t select enough goals, they wouldn’t be able to just tap a few times to earn enough energy, and that would force them to have to tap around the app more, potentially not reaching the “Send your Finch on an adventure” moment.

Now, Finch auto-populates a bunch of goals, you tap a few times, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to reach that “Aha” moment of I tap on things to earn energy to send my bird on an adventure.

Remove barriers creatively to get people to experience the value of your app faster. And to get a higher percentage of people to experience that value!

I know I said I was going to go through 2026 as well here, but it’s really not too different.

If you want to see it you have two options:

• See the full Whimsical here →

• Watch the Youtube overview where I review everything in detail

Learnings summarized:

1. Create an Engaging Hook on Screen 1: First screen has the highest drop-off rates, so engage users with fun interactions (pick color, hatch egg) instead of forms or data collection.

2. The “Not About You” Personalization Trick Users customize their Bird instead of sharing personal info, which lowers the barrier

3. Help your users: When users need to enter custom responses, provide preset options, like Finch’s shuffle

4. Real Product Experience in Onboarding: Finch users earn points in onboarding so they experience gamification mechanics early

5. Multi-Screen Paywall Strategy Break a single paywall into multiple screens that emphasize the important points (free, trial, discount, trial reminder)

6. “If It’s Important, Say It Twice”: Users won’t read critical information the first time, so don’t be afraid to repeat key messages

7. Add “How Did You Hear About Us?”: Self-reported attribution data is a valuable additive in the iOS world

8. Investment Through Questions: Adding questions about users’ lives (even if you don’t use the data much) creates perceived personalization and increases commitment before the paywall through sunk cost.

9. Close the Loop: Show a loading screen and generated plan to make users feel their input was heard

10. Solve the Cold Start Problem: Don’t land users on an empty screen. Finch Auto-populate multiple easy goals so they can immediately engage and earn rewards.

11. Remove Barriers to Activation: Identify your activation moment and creatively remove friction so a higher percentage of users reach it faster.

13. Create Habit Loops: Finch’s bird goes on an 8-hour real-time adventure, forcing users to open the app multiple times on day one and building an instant habit loop.

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I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

I went back through the last year and pulled out my favorite tips from about 50 newsletters.

I wrote ~50 newsletters in 2025 and only have 25 tips, so every newsletter didn’t make the cut. It’s the best of the best!

🔗 Your email client will cut off somewhere half way through this newsletter, so click here to open on web to see everything and prevent that in the first place.

Ahead is an amazing app, and there’s tons to learn from them. They do an amazing job of looking at tactics that work, and then adapting them for their product. So here is our first tip:

1. Don’t just copy competitors, understand the why

Rather than blindly replicating what others are doing, break down the goal behind a tactic before adapting it to your own product.

• Why is this tactic effective for this product?

• Does it leverage any psychology?

• Does it align with my product’s core value and audience?

2. Try micro-commitments early in the user journey

Ahead shows how subtle interactions like “draw a checkmark to continue” instead of a simple “Next” tap can increase engagement before a paywall. These micro-commitments increase investment and buy-in to improve the chance of making it through onboarding and converting.

Next we have a breakdown of how Headway evolved their onboarding overtime

3. Evolve onboarding incrementally. Start simple, then iterate toward richer flows

Headway’s onboarding didn’t start as a lengthy, personalized experience. It grew over time through deliberate iterations.

Don’t look at large apps and jump right into a 50 screen onboarding. The chance of that working are much lower.

4. Don’t activate lifecycle marketing until the rest of your funnel is strong

The ceiling for revenue uplift from lifecycle marketing is limited because most subscription apps convert on Day 0 or never at all, so lifecycle work only moves the needle so far.

• Fix your product conversion and onboarding first. Strong early engagement gives lifecycle campaigns something to amplify. Campaigns won’t overcome a weak core funnel.

• Only invest in a lifecycle tool, and possibly a person to manage it, once you can reliably convert a good baseline of trial users. Retention Blog

• For smaller apps, start simple with product-triggered messages (e.g., push reminders, basic email triggers) before layered lifecycle sequences or heavy automation.

• If you don’t have a freemium product, the base of active free users you’re able to convert will be even lower

5. Build meaningful 2nd offers instead of giving up after the first paywall

Even though the first paywall is critical, most users (90%+) don’t convert. There’s still value in trying to convert them with another offer.

• Offer a limited-time discount or alternative pricing: Think inexpensive lifetime deals or discounted plans for users who didn’t subscribe initially (e.g., a low-cost lifetime price can appeal to price-sensitive segments).

• Re-engage with contextual messages on app open: Show value reminders or alternative paywalls explaining key benefits more deeply. Someone opening your app again is a high intent signal!

6. Extend onboarding into the post-paywall experience

Too many apps stop their onboarding after the paywall and drop their users and some complex home screen. Goodbye users.

Actionable ways to apply this:

• Transition users into a guided first task after they pass the paywall take them straight into a meaningful activity (like a “first lesson,” setup step, or personalization question) instead of dumping them on a blank dashboard.

• Repeat value messaging where it counts — reinforce what they just paid for by showing how to use key features step by step (not just generic screens).

• Personalize the next screens based on onboarding choices (e.g., interests or goals) so users feel the app was designed with their needs in mind

(look at the article to see how Imprint evolved their post-paywall flow. It’s good)

7. Add a HDYHAU question to your onboarding

This newsletter is worth reading through in full. Or at least reading the quotes from Sylvain, Thomas, Jakub. Quite informative.

“How did you hear about us?” (HDYHAU) question doesn’t replace traditional attribution (like SKAN, App Store Connect sources, or modeling), but it adds another valuable perspective to what your tools show you — especially in a post-ATT world where last-click data is imperfect.

8. Make your paywall more interactive

Instead of a single static paywall screen, consider using multi-screen, story-like experiences (similar to Instagram Stories) for your offers. In the example from Flo, they:

• Trigger the interactive offer from multiple entry points (e.g., in-app banner, push notifications),

• Use curiosity-inducing copy like “Reveal your discount”, and

• Allow users who already know what they want (e.g., a discount) to skip ahead.

Stop showing the same static paywall every time. Get creative.

9. Use widgets and Live Activities to stay top-of-mind

Actionable ways to implement:

✔ Build a core value widget that shows meaningful metrics (like goal progress, streaks, minutes used, etc.) — not just branding.

✔ Use Live Activities for real-time events tied to user activities (e.g., a meditation timer, session tracker, or countdown to next recommended action).

✔ Prompt users contextually to add the widget — for example, after they complete a meaningful first action or hit a milestone — rather than as a generic signup ask.

10. You can now offer alternative purchase flows and capture more revenue outside of Apple’s IAP

Man, do you remember the excitement and hoopla around this?

Some apps are using this effectively, but certainly not a majority. And remember, this is still US apps only.

✔ Start with post-initial paywall upsells (e.g., discounted upgrades or alternative plans) rather than replacing your primary IAP flow right away. This can limit risk while you understand impacts.

✔ If you’re under $1M in revenue, don’t bother. It’s likely a distraction and the lower conversion rate from directing to web will probably make it not worth it.

There is still a lot of opportunity here and I’m not 100% sure of all the best practices.

Gmail cuts off right about here for me, click here to read the rest on web →

11. Use strategic plan structuring to nudge better subscription choices

Nebula’s subscription tiers illustrate a deliberate pricing structure:

• Weekly plan with a 3-day free trial (likely converts users who are unsure).

• A 3-month plan without a trial priced slightly below the year (acting as a price decoy).

• Yearly plan with a good value proposition.

Because the 3-month plan isn’t a strong value play versus yearly, it likely makes the yearly plan look more attractive — boosting higher-value conversions.

They also use a secondary offer with a free trial tied to the yearly price if users skip the first paywall

12. Structure your A/B tests properly

Key parts of a rigorous test:

✔ Calculate sample size and test duration in advance

• Don’t guess, estimate how many users you need based on baseline conversion and expected lift.

• Consider your minimum detectable effect so you don’t end tests before there’s enough data

✔ Test one thing at a time

• Isolate variables (e.g., just copy, or just layout) so results are attributable to a single change.

• Avoid overlapping experiments that can muddy results by splitting your audience unintentionally

✔ Don’t stop early, even if you hit statistical significance early

• Let the test run for the full pre-determined length — results can swing day-to-day if you stop too soon

✔ Randomize audiences and check tracking

• Make sure your experiment assigns users randomly and consistently (the same user should always see the same variant).

• Double-check that all events you plan to measure (e.g., trial starts, key actions) are being tracked before you launch. Discovering you don’t have all the data after you go to measure and analyze really sucks.

13. Segment users by early behavior to tailor pricing offers

Instead of one paywall for everyone, look at how users behave in the first session or onboarding.

Actions you can try:

• Low-engagement segment: Users who skip onboarding questions or don’t take core actions → show a discounted offer or extended trial.

• High-engagement segment: Users who complete key actions early → show your standard or premium plan without discount.

Apologies for the interruption - this is a good opportunity for a Botsi plug:

I shared this on LinkedIn, but I'm excited so you'll have to excuse me sharing again!

Model training took a few weeks, but when we deployed the trained model, there was a pretty obvious impact.

On average, revenue is up 21% and new subscribers are up 11.6% since we've deployed.

We typically launch models as an A/B test, so 50% of your new users get your baseline paywall, and 50% of your new users will see Botsi AI Pricing.

This way, we can be confident in the true incremental impact.

Read more here ->

Okay, back to your regular scheduled programming...

14. Break down core KPIs by segment (don’t look at averages)

Evaluate retention, conversion, activation, ARPU, renewal, and cancellation rates for each segment. Averages are always wrong and deceptive

• Platform: iOS vs Android vs Web

• Geo/demographics: Country, age bracket

• Attribution source: Organic vs paid channels

• Zero-party data segments: Onboarding questions like “What’s your goal?”

• Behavioral segments: First 30-minute actions, feature usage patterns

15. Use cohorts to isolate changes over time

Segment users by install date (cohorts) when you analyze retention and conversion — this tells you whether product or marketing changes actually move the needle.

Actionable steps:

• Build weekly/monthly retention cohorts and track changes after product updates or campaign launches.

• Compare segments like “users from ASA campaigns in Week X” vs “users from another channel in Week X.”

• Look for patterns in drop-offs, not just overall retention %.

16. Add lock icons to premium features

What to do

• Place a lock symbol on content/features that require a subscription.

• Do this throughout the app in menus, lists, cards, etc.

Why this matters

• This reminds free users what they’re missing — which tends to bump trial starts and conversions.

• In experiments from the field (e.g., Mojo team), simply showing locks increased free-to-paid conversion

17. Add more “Unlock/Upgrade” CTAs throughout the app

What to do

• Don’t limit “Subscribe” or “Get Premium” buttons to the paywall — also include them in:

  • Settings screens

  • Feature screens (e.g., text editors, dashboards)

  • Profile tabs

  • Sidebar or footer on major pages

Why this matters

• The post points out that additional CTAs in context catch free users when they’re already motivated— e.g., when trying to use a premium feature.

18. Label your app or screens as “Free Edition” in multiple spots

What to do

• Add “Free Edition” messaging in app headers, home screens, or near feature names where free users see it often.

Why this works

• Subconsciously reinforces the idea that the experience is limited — and that there’s more to get.

• Think of it as light scarcity framing without being pushy.

19. Offer a second free trial to returning users

If you have a freemium app, a decent free user base, and/or free users returning to your app, try giving them a second free trial.

Don’t do this immediately after they completed their first free trial, but if you have a decent base of free users who already completed a trial, it doesn’t really hurt you to offer them another one. It’s unlikely they’re going to convert without some type of offer, so this can be good instead of offering another discount.

20. Follow up immediately with an offer after new users exit your app

Right after a new user closes the app without converting, send a push notification that includes a discount.

New users have the highest intent and may just need a nudge or reminder.

21. Send a second offer the next day

People forget. If someone doesn’t act on the first conversion push, follow up the next day with the same offer. This simple repetition can capture users who were simply distracted or wanted more time.

22. Personalize goal inputs continuously through onboarding and paywall screens

Zing asks users to choose their personal goal early (e.g., muscle gain) and then re-uses that same phrase everywhere — in onboarding screens and on the paywall — to reinforce relevance. Simple string personalization usually boosts engagement and conversion

How to apply this:

• Capture one or two zero-party data points early (e.g., specific user goals or preferences).

• Surface that data repeatedly in flows — in guidance, contextual micro-copy, and on the paywall itself (e.g., “Your X plan is tailored for [goal]”).

23. Define a Specific Activation Metric (not just “activated”)

Activation should not be vague. It should be a quantitative metric tied to user behavior that predicts long-term retention and value. It’s not enough to say “user onboarded”; you must define a metric that correlates with later retention and monetization.

Read the post to actually learn how to do it, but here’s a quick summary:

✔ Brainstorm a set of candidate events that users might complete early and that signal value received (e.g., “completed first core action,” “set a goal,” “finished 2 sessions”).

✔ Select events that are:

• Meaningful — tied to value your app promises

• Early — can be completed soon after signup

• Predictive — correlated with longer-term retention Retention Blog

  ✔ Combine events into a defined activation metric (e.g., “completed 2 core actions within the first week”).

24. Test the placement of account creation in onboarding

Tiimo moved its account creation step earlier to right after the initial welcome screen instead of just before the paywall.

Placing this ask when users still have high initial intent can increase account signup without sacrificing paywall conversion later.

Another good option can be moving account creation to after the paywall. Either way, test the placement to figure out how to maximize conversion

25. Invest in a distinct visual identity

Tiimo uses engaging, memorable imagery and custom illustrations that communicate personality and differentiation in a crowded category.

If you’re trying to build a brand, you have to feel unique and different. If you don’t care about building a memorable brand, you can ignore this :)

How people feel when using your product is what they remember. Spend an unreasonable amount of time on design and it’ll pay off.

Wow! What a year!

It’s was pretty darn cool to go back through the last year of content and pull out my favorite tips.

I have a list of 2-3x more than what I shared here, but I tried to pull out the most actionable items.

That’s what I promise in this newsletter, so I gotta keep my promises!

Out of any newsletter over the last year,
this one is worth sharing!

Thank you all for your support this year ❤️

Onward!

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Q5 is almost here.

You still have time to create some seasonal paywalls.

Let’s look at some ideas for different types of paywalls and offers.

Tell a Story

Engage users with the IG story format.

Create a simple narrative around your sale to better sell your offer and product.

Lifetime offers can work!

For your subscription business, lifetime isn’t a great idea to do all the time, but the holidays are different.

People who normally wouldn’t buy can be enticed into larger purchases!

Create some interactivity

This level of detail will probably be tough to get done before Dec 26, but maybe for January?

Flo has been using this “scratch off” style paywall to reveal your discount.

Interesting and fun is better.

Use the same paywall, but add an in-app message

Building a new paywall can take a while.

Use the same paywall design, but deep link to it with a simple in-app message that can be more creative!

If you have CRM / lifecycle marketing tools that allow you to deploy a new in-app message without any coding needed, this can be a super fast way to create a new experience to promote an offer to your users.

Yes, you’ll still need some dynamic capabilities on the product level of your paywall.

Even easier, just use iOS Offer Codes

You don’t even need to build a new paywall!

Just create a new offer code in App Store Connect and deep link to it.

Apple will give you a link to use and you can send users to this link from in-app, emails, push, and more.

🎙️ New Price Power Podcast Episode!

Ekaterina Gamsriegler (ex-Mimo, Amplitude Product50’s Top Growth Product Leader) breaks down why most growth teams struggle not because of a lack of ideas — but because they optimize the wrong things, in the wrong order.

Ekaterina walks through real-world examples across onboarding, paywalls, trials, activation, and pricing — showing how user psychology, perceived value, and expectation-setting matter more than dashboards alone.

What you’ll learn:

• Why growth doesn’t start with an MMP — and why product analytics matter more early on

• How to break KPIs like CPI or trial starts into inputs you can actually control

• Why prioritization, not ideation, is the real bottleneck for growth teams

• Why complex personalization is often overrated — and what works better instead

• When lowering prices is the right move (and when it’s dangerous)

• Why fixing your pricing story often matters more than changing the number

Watch and listen here:

➡️ Spotify 🔗
➡️ Youtube 🔗
➡️ Apple Podcasts 🔗

📣 Want to help support and spread the word?

Go to my LinkedIn here and like, comment, or share my posts.

OR

Share this newsletter by clicking here.

Retention.Blog is sponsored by Botsi:

For the last year and a half, I’ve been working on building a company.

That company is Botsi. We power AI Pricing for your subscription app.

How does AI Pricing Work?

1. First, you’ll tell us what price points and paywalls you have

2. Second, you’ll send us some contextual and behavioral data on new users

3. Third, we’ll send you back the right paywall to show each user (in real-time)

Schedule a demo at Botsi.com →

I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.

Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.

Congratulations, Tiimo!

And everyone on the team who helped contribute to this achievement.

Tiimo is a planning and to-do app built for neurodivergent people.

The founders:

• Melissa Würtz Azari

• Helene Lassen Nørlem

Who better to learn from than the App of the Year!?

Lesson 1: Differentiate

How crowded is the planner and to-do list app space? Really, really, really crowded.

But if you can differentiate and position yourselves, you can stand out.

If your app is for everyone, it’s for no one. Who are you building for?

🎙️ New Price Power Podcast Episode!

Lucas Moscon is the founder of Appstack, a mobile growth and attribution mastermind, was a senior UA manager at MonkeyTaps, and advisor for huge companies like Life360.

That’s a long way of saying he knows his shit.

What you’ll learn

• “Most apps don’t actually need an MMP anymore”

• “Fingerprinting is BS - 90% is via IP address”

• “Your iOS RoAS is probably wrong. You need to use a blended ROI”

• How to correctly design conversion values for SKAN without over-engineering

• Why focusing on payback windows (D60–D180) outperforms optimizing for short-term ROAS

• Why probabilistic fingerprinting is still powering the ad ecosystem — and why Apple hasn’t stopped it

• and more

Watch and listen here:

➡️ Spotify 🔗
➡️ Youtube 🔗
➡️ Apple Podcasts 🔗

Lesson 2: Continually test the placement of critical onboarding screens

I looked at Tiimo in June 2024, so we can compare what’s changed

One of the highest drop-off points is account creation.

But. It also can be productive because it creates higher intent users.

It’s not important to make sure every single user makes it to your paywall.

It’s important that the right users who will pay make it there.

June 2024:

Previously, they had account creation right before the paywall.

Dec 2025:

Now Tiimo has account creation right after the initial welcome screen.

This can be an effective tactic because people have the most energy and intent right when they download your app.

If someone isn’t willing to create an account when they have the highest intent, do you really think they’ll pay you?

Also, this separates two large asks further away from each other: account creation and the paywall.

I bet this boosted account creation rates, decreased onboarding drop off, and improved the trial start rate.

Lesson 3: Put your users first

If you noticed above, immediately after Tiimo asks you for account creation, they ask if you’d like to receive updates.

This is atypical.

Most products just send you updates and promotions.

But this doesn’t fit with their brand or philosophy.

It would 100% build some early trust with me as a user.

Lesson 4: Have a visual identity

I wrote a little about this in July 2024:

Tiimo does such a nice job having a distinctive feel.

Their engaging and unique illustrations instantly tell who they are.

“We’re creative”, “we’re different”, “We’re full of life”

Maybe most importantly, you remember. It doesn’t just blend into all the faceless and nameless software you use every day.

It instills emotion.

If you want to be remembered, you can’t be the same as everyone else.

Not to mention the fun change of adding their little purple circle mascot person!

Old:

New:

The hands don’t really match the body, but we’ll let it go…

Lesson 5: Use simple paywall personalization

I’ve given this advice before, so if you’re still not doing it, this is your signal to launch a test.

Add simple string personalization to your paywall.

Tiimo asks new users if they’re neurodivergent.

If they say, “yes”, then they change the title on the paywall.

Simple as that.

Asks users what are your goals, something specific about their experience, or some other question that will change their user type. Then personalize the copy based on that.

I’ve rarely seen this not have a positive impact.

Lesson 6: Simplify

Tiimo has two “quiz” type questions before the paywall today.

In 2024, they had 3 questions.

Not a huge reduction, but shows their desire to simplify based on their improved understanding of their users.

Look at the difference in copy:

• “This describes me best”

• “Are you neurodivergent?”

A much more focused and simple message.

And their pricing was so confusing:

Who is each plan for?

$6 vs $8 is such a small amount it makes the choice harder.

It says monthly for each, but then down below it’s annual…

Let’s look at the updated paywall and plans:

ahhh, that’s better. So much easier to understand.

One plan, two price and length options, both 30 day trial (which is interesting for a monthly plan…)

Lesson 7: Keep testing pricing and packaging

We had two lessons wrapped up in one there. Simplify, and keep optimizing your pricing and packaging.

If you didn’t see, Michal Parizek, Senior Product Growth Manager at Mojo, wrote a break down on all of his pricing tests and experiments.

He boosted ARPU by 60% year over year, and had a 56% win rate on price tests compared to 14% on other experiment types.

You can go read the full post here: Pricing Experiments: The Backbone of Mojo’s Monetization Success →

Pricing is often one of your most powerful and impactful levers, so you should not ever think of your pricing and packaging as “Done.” It’s an ever-changing offer that should update as your product and user base evolves.

Lesson 8: Your product will change

I understand this one may seem a bit obvious.

“Duh, Jacob, I know my product will change.”

What I mean is that your differentiation and features and how people think of your product will change.

And it should.

“…if that’s what you meant, why didn’t you say that the first time, Jacob?”

What got you your first users, won’t be the same thing that gets you a million users.

For example, Tiimo was promoting “body doubling” in 2024

This is when you can have someone else present to help you focus. Tiimo did it very video.

In 2025 there is no mention of it: