The Hidden Cost of Underpricing Your Subscription – Patrick Rills, Lose It!

Held $39.99/year from 2012 while testing constantly up and down the demand curve ($5 to $120/year); no price beat $40 consistently. In late 2024, with phones and competitors getting pricier, retested a higher price: net revenue broke even for the first time. Re-ran on iOS and Android and on new, existing and reactivated user cohorts with similar results, then rolled out ~$80/year (competitors' level) to new users in 2026. Rationale: rising CACs (incl. Meta restricting health and wellness ads) and AI feature costs; at $40 it is much harder to hit the ROAS needed to ramp paid acquisition.

Homegrown lifecycle sale system built into the app and refined over years: how much discount a user gets depends on where they are in their journey. The $80 base leaves room for steep 25%, 50%, 75% discounts that $40 couldn't support; bigger percentage off usually converts better even when the dollar price ends up higher.

Did not raise prices on existing subscriptions: Apple's existing-subscriber price increase flow (notification, then opt in via the App Store) felt confusing, was impossible to A/B test, and the attrition rate was unknown (could be 25% or 75%). Also a long habit of grandfathering loyal users on policy changes, e.g. when the barcode scanner moved from behind the paywall, only new users got the change.

Free product has always been a full freemium experience (free-only 2008-2012); users can do everything needed to lose weight for free, and the team keeps investing in it. Premium is 'just that much better' for more motivated users.

Implemented ad-based monetization in the free product, one-off in-app purchases, and in-app partnerships earning affiliate revenue. A higher subscription tier is still under consideration.