Lifecycle Experiments That Drive Revenue

When a user taps X/back on the paywall (or cancels a trial), show about three exclusive brand gifts they can pick (a month of Disney+, Paramount+, ClassPass, BetterHelp, DoorDash/Uber Eats credit, Capital One $10). Claiming a gift also starts another 30 days (Ahead: 3 months) of the app's premium trial, which converts to paid automatically; the brand pays the app for the new customer (BetterHelp pays Ahead over $200 per claim). Sign-up happens in an in-app Safari sheet, the brand verifies a new user, then the user drops back into the app. Frame it as a gift you lose if you click away, not a discount, so full-price payers aren't undercut. Can follow a discount offer that was declined. Set up as a 50/50 A/B test against the existing flow with a dashboard of comeback, offer and resubscribe rates. During the extended window, show an annual-plan discount (30-70% off) right after the user's first great experience.

Encore asks an app for a share of users (e.g. half of those who click X on the paywall), runs win-back experiments for 30 days at no charge, and shows a live control-vs-Encore tracker. If the comeback rate doesn't improve, the app pays nothing and keeps all experiment data; once it does, Encore takes a percent of the revenue it has shown it can win back. Also offers free paywall audits.

The app detects that a user cancelled their free trial and immediately sends a push notification: come back and save 50%. If they say no, it offers 30 days of the app free by claiming a brand deal (e.g. 30 days of Paramount+) through Encore.

Onboarding is benefit-led (not features) with social proof on every screen. Tapping the free trial shows 'Welcome to Pro'; tapping X shows 'Enjoy a week of Pro on us' and walks the user through Pro features. During the week, Pro-labelled notifications (bus/train alerts) show what goes away without a subscription, and ads are removed. Before the week ends the app says it's about to end, then offers a discount.

Copied from ReciMe's paywall (7-day free trial; monthly first month $1.99 then renews). App Masters' own app shows two options: 7 days free then $60/year, or $1.99 for the first month (renewal stated as $4.99), and made the yearly renewal slightly cheaper so users do the math. Host says even keeping the same yearly price works.

The last onboarding page is not a subscription paywall but a single Boost ('Be seen 10 times more') for $2.99, to get users paying for one clear benefit before upselling premium.

Test in progress: after users hit X on the first paywall, offer a one-time purchase (no subscription) framed around the end outcome rather than credits, inspired by Hily's Boost.

In the Commit habit tracker, completing habits plays an animation and unlocks a surprise: Indie App Santa deals plus Encore offers ('get a free month of these things on us').

Details withheld (in the paid App Founders community). Hint: think about what is free in the app and use those free things to encourage more ratings.

Because the US App Store also indexes keywords from some localizations, host still fills the Spanish (Mexico) localization with extra keywords; other localizations (Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese) haven't worked as well.

Tried a keyword-first title ('Learn Language - App Name') on Apple; keeping the keyword at the back seemed to work about as well. On Google Play, keyword placement matters more because of its SEO-like ranking.

Move phone number / email / account registration after the paywall so close to 100% of first-open users see it; collect the details (e.g. Sign in with Apple) after they pay.