Cardstock · B2C · sports card scanner app
Make the app free to download and charge $5 a month instead of $4.99 once
Biggest revenue jump ever; growth took off from the 2021 switch
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- early growth
In their words
Kyle Fowler - How I make $42k/mo passively with simple no-code apps (copy me)
Joseph ChoiDo you recommend subs to anyone, or sorry, um like paid download apps at all to to anyone to try, or were you just doing it 'cause that's what you just the first thing you thought of?
Kyle FowlerIt was the first thing. I just knew it would be easy 'cause then I knew I wouldn't have to handle paid. I mean, honestly, these days with stuff like guess I got to promo Superwall, but uh there with stuff like Superwall is so easy. There's just no reason not to do a like a hard paywall. If you If you want to If you insist on it, you might as well just do free, 'cause the switch to switch to free for us was by far like the biggest revenue jump ever for us. It was insane.
Joseph ChoiWhat was the revenue jump when you switched to free?
Joseph ChoiYeah.
Kyle FowlerOn the On the graph, 'cause it was pretty crazy when we switched. I remember like I'd had a few calls with people. A few people were trying to like hire me 'cause they saw the app and they saw that I wasn't making like that much money. They were trying to like recruit me to work for their like similar products in the space. And then at some point, I just like People kept mentioning that I should switch to a free trial, and I was just like I just could not believe anyone would pay $5 recurring. I was like, "It costs $15 for a Netflix subscription. Who's paying a third of that for Cardstock?" And then, people were like, "Just make it $5 a month, people will buy it." And I was like, "People are paying $5 for lifetime access forever right now." And people were like, "Nope, they'll buy it."
Kyle FowlerAnd then so, I did it and switched to that, and it exploded from there. Like, that was when our revenue really started to grow. 'Cause 'cause maybe the the downloads, I guess, were actually pretty high. Like, you can see they weren't actually that big of a jump ever, 'cause by this time, for sure, had all like come come about, but
Joseph ChoiMhm. And what was your pricing plan?
Kyle FowlerUh 5 a month, 50 a year, and 99 lifetime.
Joseph ChoiCool.
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More from this episode
- Post your app idea in the hobby's subreddit before building it10-15 people said they'd use it; later drove launch downloads
- Announce the launch in the same subreddit, linking your earlier idea post12 paid downloads (~$60) on launch day
- Spend two weeks on keyword research, then put the best terms in your title#1 for 'baseball card scanner' for 2-3 years; ~$9-10K MRR with no marketing
- Post brand-style TikToks (memes, silent pack openings) on the app's accountFirst videos got ~23 likes; viral ones brought no downloads without the app on screen
- Film a valuable card, scan it with the app in hand, then reveal its priceFirst one hit 184K views; became the repeatable format behind the TikTok growth
- Hire a friend to figure out TikTok with you before paying an agencyFriend became the de facto CMO; knew enough to spot a good UGC agency later
- Show the paywall at first open, with a small hidden XMost subscriptions came from this first paywall, before people used the app
- Switch to a hard paywallRevenue reached ~$30K/month (alongside a Christmas TikTok spike)
- Put the app's name on the scanner screen so every video shows itFounder thinks it lifts conversion; no data yet
- Post card-collecting tips slideshows from an account with an AI-made girl avatarSeveral posts over 100K views; the format then scaled through paid creators
- Pay creators about $1 per 1,000 views to post your slideshow template~7,600 posts in a month for $2,600, about $1 CPM; biggest recent growth driver
Tags: app-store, paid-to-freemium, subscription, lifetime-plan, free-trial