App Monetization: Paywalls, Pricing & Revenue Growth Strategies

Copied from ReciMe. At the end of onboarding: a feature video, then screen 1 'We offer 7 days for free', screen 2 'You'll get a reminder 2 days before your trial ends', then the push-notification permission prompt, then the paywall. Best with a yearly plan defaulted with a 7-day trial; tried on a weekly plan with a 3-day trial and it worked less well.

Set up two yearly subscription products: one with a 7-day free trial, one with an introductory price of $1.99 for the first month that then renews at the full yearly price. Show both on the paywall (ReciMe does this alongside its $5.99 monthly). Most users pick the free trial; the smaller group that picks the paid intro renews better. Variants: a cheaper first 3 months (Audible-style ~$3 for 3 months) for fitness apps.

App Founders community member Sebastian added the paid intro offer (discounted first period on a yearly subscription, alongside the free-trial yearly plan) after the host shared it in the community.

Value-based onboarding, then the paywall. If the user taps X: 'Enjoy a week of Pro on us', then a second onboarding that gets them to opt into Pro-only push notifications (live line status, daily travel summary, major service disruptions). A '7 days left' countdown (6, 5, 4...) and pushes like 'your Pro membership ends in 5 days' play on loss aversion; push notifications also send a discount offer to freemium users. Works best when premium features have no usage cost.

Compared a soft paywall (closeable) with a hard paywall (no X) at the end of onboarding on an in-house app.

Add a 'How did you hear about us?' onboarding screen (as ReciMe does). If the answer is Instagram, Facebook or TikTok (paid channels), show the paywall with no X; else (e.g. 'Search on App Store', organic/ASA) show a soft paywall with an X to avoid angry reviews. Implement as a simple if/else in code, or via the Apphud + Superwall integration. Rationale: forces a decision, and sends purchase signals to Meta faster.

Client with 1M monthly active users had no onboarding paywall, fearing it would hurt retention and sharing-driven organic growth. They added a paywall to the onboarding flow.

Instead of a single 'one-time 50% off' offer, show a slider: full price $60, starts at $40, sliding all the way gives $30 (50% off, the same floor as the one-time offer). Users feel they chose the better deal.

Plan lineup of 1 month, 3 months and 12 months for a fitness app client.

Community members ran a price comparison of $41.99 vs $39.99; host generalizes to using round .99 prices ($9.99, $19.99) rather than odd ones like $13.49.

Order: onboarding screens -> paywall -> registration. Asking for sign-up first loses most users.

App Masters picks keywords with search volume and builds apps to rank for them, relying on ASO for installs.

Create a custom product page for each Apple Search Ads campaign; App Store Connect revenue per custom product page then works as the campaign revenue tracker, without an MMP. Alternatives: RevenueCat, appscale.ai.

For a keyword such as 'deep conversations', create a custom product page whose first screenshot features that keyword, and link the keyword to the page in App Store Connect (the keyword must be in the keyword field). Host did it for a client using AppScreens.

For a client with no monetization that wanted the cheapest installs, ran TikTok Spark Ads alongside Meta.