Creative Paywall Inspiration (vol 2.)
Choose your price, video, lifetime, and reverse trials
Hey there, it’s Jacob at Retention.Blog 👋
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’m always looking for new paywall tests
Here are a few more you can add to your testing queue.
We’ll look at:
2 “Choose your price” paywalls
2 different implementations of lifetime offers
1 very in-depth video paywall
1 reverse trial
Pay what you want:
Woah, but won’t everyone just select the lowest price?
Sometimes, but often people like to feel like they’re supporting your product and don’t want to feel cheap. And some are willing to pay more!
I love this strategy if you feel like you have an ethical brand and a pay what you want approach more extend that brand value.
Yuka – Food & Cosmetic Scanner
iOS IAP revenue only from Appfigures
Yuka is constantly ranking in the top 5 for health and fitness apps, and could probably push monetization harder if they want. They don’t show a paywall to every new user coming.
They had 1M+ downloads in the last 30 days, and less than $1M in revenue.
But, a large part of their marketing is being free, so this has greatly contributed to their growth.
🎉 Big news… announcing Botsi is now live! 🎉
I’ve been working with apps for 12+ years now.
For the last 1.5 years, I’ve been working to build the tool of my dreams.
Introducing Botsi.
Botsi is the growth toolkit for the modern subscription app.
AI Pricing Models improve revenue while you sleep
Native no-code onboarding and paywall builders to grow faster and with fewer dev cycles
Combine multiple existing tools into one integrated toolkit (Revenue infra/analytics, product engagement analytics, A/B testing, and more)
What does Botsi mean for app founders and marketers?
Fewer SDKs and cost layers
Engineers can focus on improving the core product, while anyone on the team (design, PM, marketing) can optimize your sales conversion funnel
Maximize value by showing the right price to the right user
P.S. We are onboarding new customers as fast as we can, but we do have a waitlist at the moment. Sign up for a demo, and we’ll reach out to chat.
Rocket Money (formerly Truebill)
iOS IAP revenue only from Appfigures
Rocket Money has a very detailed and interactive paywall with tons of information. This makes sense for being an app that connects to your bank account, you need to build trust.
And the core value prop is stopping unnecessary subscriptions. And then they ask you to pay a subscription for an app to stop subscriptions? They had to get creative, and so they started using this “Choose your own price” module.
For reference, this is what their paywall used to look like:
Lifetime Products
I believe lifetime products are underutilized.
“Oh no, we’re cannibalizing on subscription rates!”
Yeah, but all your monthly subscribers cancel after 3 months, and only 20% of your annual users renew…
Impulse
iOS IAP revenue only from Appfigures
Impulse uses pricing and packaging to get you thinking about which offer is the better deal and which you should try.
Weekly renews after 3 days, so they probably get a lot of people who wouldn’t normally pay with that offer.
And then I’d bet people who might normally select yearly, get enticed to pay 25% more with the lifetime offer.
“Oh, it’s only $10 more for access forever, sure, I’ll take that.”
But if you see 30% annual renewal rates, by offering this lifetime option, you’re essentially saying I’ll take all that renewal revenue immediately to reinvest in faster growth.
Waterllama
iOS IAP revenue only from Appfigures
Waterllama’s lifetime offer is 2.5x the price of the discounted annual, but if you compare it to the normal annual price, lifetime looks attractive.
Their annual renewal rate probably isn’t amazing either, so getting more upfront revenue could be quite attractive.
Video Paywalls
I’m seeing more and more apps add videos to their paywalls (or right before the paywall). If it’s decently engaging and informative, a video can make your app feel higher quality.
And videos are so easy to create now.
Dr. Kegal
iOS IAP revenue only from Appfigures
Pre-paywall video featuring video testimonials
You don’t need to watch the whole thing to understand what they’re doing.
This pre-paywall video transitions right into the video on the paywall, so you keep watching and listening
Paywall video
I scroll through the whole paywall - look how long it is!! And if you go back up to the top, that video will start playing again.
Reverse Trial
What’s the most creative paywall? No paywall!
Ladder
iOS IAP revenue only from Appfigures
Ladder is a quite successful app. They give you access free for 7 days without starting a trial, but then take it away. And then you have to pay if you want to keep access.
That’s all folks!
See a more complete overview of Ladder and reverse trials here:
See vol. 1 of creative paywalls here:
📣 Want to help support and spread the word?
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Botsi is now live.
I’ve been working with apps for 12+ years now.
For the last 1.5 years, I’ve been working to build the tool of my dreams.
Introducing Botsi.
Botsi is the growth toolkit for the modern subscription app.
AI Pricing Models improve revenue while you sleep
Native no-code onboarding and paywall builders to grow faster and with fewer dev cycles
Combine multiple existing tools into one integrated toolkit (Revenue infra/analytics, product engagement analytics, A/B testing, and more)
What does Botsi mean for app founders and marketers?
Fewer SDKs and cost layers
Engineers can focus on improving the core product, while anyone on the team (design, PM, marketing) can optimize your sales conversion funnel
Maximize value by showing the right price to the right user
P.S. We are onboarding new customers as fast as we can, but we do have a waitlist at the moment. Sign up for a demo, and we’ll reach out to chat.
Botsi looks very cool Jacob! Excited to (hopefully) demo
Congrats on the Botsi launch! You're a beast