The Highest Performing Paywalls for Apps

Three-page paywall that tells a story. Page 1: value prop framed as 'we want you to experience [value] for free'. Page 2: 'don't worry, we'll send you a reminder before your trial ends'. Page 3: the convincing page; guest prefers one killer testimonial or social proof over the common trial timeline. Don't cookie-cutter Cal AI's version; keep imagery consistent with the rest of onboarding. Can be combined with the 'design your trial' paywall.

Tested accolades (App of the Day, Editors' Choice), ratings volume, recent signups, and a single killer testimonial over lifestyle imagery. App of the Day badge works really well; one killer review beats a carousel of reviews. Imagery must match the rest of the onboarding (lifestyle vs illustration).

Host A/B tested a paywall with one killer testimonial against versions showing the average rating and the number of ratings.

'Design your trial' soft paywall: two annual plans with different App Store Connect introductory offers, so the choice is the trial, not the plan length. Option A: free trial (3 or 7 days). Option B: 30-day pay-up-front intro offer at $3.99-$5.99 (seen $7.99 work; $2.99 or lower fails). CTA text changes with the selection ('Redeem 3 days for $0' / '30 days for $4.99'); show the renewal annual price (even in the plan selectors, performs just as well); update the timeline for the paid trial; still send a reminder near day 28. Often combined with the multi-page paywall.

Host A/B tested a paid intro offer on one of his fitness apps, messaged as 'first month for $1.99' rather than a 30-day trial. Plans to rerun with the same design at $4.99 and 'trial' wording.

A member of the host's community applied the paid intro offer strategy the host shared.

Trigger the offer on transaction abandon (user tapped the CTA, then closed Apple's payment sheet), not on paywall close. Offer a longer trial (3-day -> 7-day, or 7 -> 14) renewing at the standard price, with copy like 'Need more time to decide? How about an extended 7-day trial on us?'. Show it in a drawer modal or a screen with a back button so users can always escape. Apple allows one-time offers but not nagging, and dislikes a cheaper ('better') offer right after the first paywall; a different intro offer at the same renewal price is more likely approved than a discount.

App-to-web variant: route only annual plans to web (Stripe) checkout; weekly/monthly go through in-app purchase, since cheaper short plans bought on the web bring more billing issues and fraud. Use Stripe Managed Payments rather than Stripe Billing for its fraud prevention, chargeback/dispute handling, support, refunds and taxes.

Only once out of Apple's Small Business Program (paying 30%, not 15%). Paywall CTA sends users to web checkout (e.g. Stripe). Expect a big drop in initial conversion but better trial-to-paid and retention, because the extra friction filters out people who would cancel immediately.

Headway: long onboarding, commitment screen, multi-page hard paywall; 'Continue' opens a web page (in an in-app browser) where users enter email and pay. A 'Continue with in-app purchase' option jumps back into the app and starts the Apple purchase seamlessly. Guest notes Apple technically requires the external browser, and a deep link back would give the same UX.

Guest no longer offers freemium where he has a say. His last product had three subscription tiers so users self-select, with a basic tier and room for a downgrade tier or tiers tailored to onboarding answers. A free trial on every tier.

Put a paywall in onboarding or early in the first session (even a 2-3 step intro then paywall) so ~90% of first installs see one, instead of making users hunt for an upgrade button.

Never price lifetime below 3.5x the annual plan; its job is to anchor the recurring yearly plan unless you actually want lifetime sales. Check every paywall for three things that lower conversion: how many decisions it asks for, whether it makes users read, and whether it makes them do math.

Five levers: pricing & packaging, design, messaging, placement & frequency, personalization. Never combine two levers in one variant until each was tested alone. Start with pricing & packaging (price, trial length and options, showing annual only with 'show all plans', vertical vs horizontal plan stacking); then design and messaging, lately more personalization.

For casual/party game apps, lifetime around $40 with yearly ~$29.99 close to it; Germany prefers lifetime or annual over subscriptions, so change packaging there (guest agrees for Germany; for party games he would also consider a weekly plan).

An app with light and dark mode only had a light paywall; they added a dark-mode paywall and split-tested it against light-only.

A colleague tested a paywall headline tailored to a user's onboarding input against a standard headline.

RoboKiller required contacts permission so calls from known contacts (e.g. a child's school) are never blocked. Apple rejected it; the team explained the use case in an appeal each time.