Top Growth and Monetization Insights for Subscription Apps — Sylvain Gauchet, Babbel and Growth Gems

Doubled the subscription price. Conversions held and even rose, so short-term revenue more than doubled. Looking at the cohorts soon after showed the subscribers who paid the higher price were not retaining. Host's lesson: pair price tests with cohort retention as a counter-metric; a price that feels unfair can also hurt word of mouth.

At launch offered only a monthly subscription (no annual) so every month subscribers re-confirm they still want the product; watched how people churned and talked to churners to improve the product. Guest's framing: run it for at least a few months, then add a yearly plan and compare. Trade-off: less upfront cash than annual plans, which matters if you reinvest in ads.

Instead of A/B testing, released an app update every 7 days that changed something big (onboarding was a focus), then compared the prior 7 days of performance against the next 7 days as a simple weekly cohort.

Paywall copy originally highlighted what engineers were proud of. Changed it to the benefit users were actually looking for. Guest suggests finding that benefit by asking users why they downloaded the app and reusing their words in paywall and onboarding copy.

Offered gift subscriptions; around the December holidays they made up about a third of sales, largely bought by existing customers. Implementation not described for this company. Hosts' notes on how: sell a one-time (non-renewing) in-app purchase that grants the recipient one year of access (e.g. via a RevenueCat promotional entitlement) or sell gift codes through Shopify for email-driven traffic; don't discount too much since gifts don't renew; time it for Christmas, Black Friday, Valentine's Day.

Uses user surveys to decide which features go behind the paywall and how much users will pay, with the Gabor-Granger and Van Westendorp pricing models, alongside heavy A/B testing and user interviews. Guest: treat survey answers with a grain of salt and A/B test prices once there is enough volume; pricing talks can start before building.

Onboarding explains how the product affects the user's life and why they should care rather than showing how to use the app ('if you need a tutorial, it's too complicated'). Because better sleep takes weeks to feel, Rise used more screens to convince users up front and nurture intent toward the paywall, and iterated heavily through experiments.

Track paywall interaction events (swiping, selecting a price package, trying to open a paywalled feature) even when the user never taps subscribe. Put those users in a segment and later send CRM messages with personalization or a modest discount, like e-commerce abandoned-cart flows. Don't send too fast and don't discount too much (guest: some people will convert at 10% off). Users who just close the paywall show low intent.

Don't only push the longer plan at sign-up, when users haven't seen value yet. Find engaged monthly subscribers (e.g. after their first 3 months) and pitch the yearly plan as a way to save money. Later the upsell can also be to a higher tier (pro/elite/platinum) rather than just a longer duration.