Raise the price only for new users; keep current subscribers on their old price

David Bernard… And one thing you didn't do was raise prices on existing users, which is always such a tough decision. I've heard it go both ways. I've heard some people say they doubled prices and it was just and they didn't grandfather users, and because their customer base was so loyal, they just made way more money, and, you know, they saw some churn, but but it was, you know, significantly offset by the increase of the price. Why did you choose not to?

Patrick RillsYeah, there were a few reasons why. So the way that you have to increase the price on existing subscriptions in the App Store, I feel like the UX is confusing and cumbersome. I think you get like a notification that says, "When you renew, you know, the price is going to go up," and then they have to go to the App Store and either opt-in or not opt-in. I didn't feel like that was a good experience for our users. To us, it was impossible to A/B test.

David BernardYeah.

Patrick RillsIt was a huge risk for us that we felt like we couldn't take on. Like what is the attrition rate when you raise the price of an existing subscription? I don't know. That might be in the State of the Subscription Apps report, I don't know, but to us, it's like we couldn't risk it. Like is it 75%? Is it 25%? It was just too too big of an unknown for us. And also, we've always had a history of, uh whenever we've made policy or product changes over the years, to grandfather in our loyal users. When we were at the App Growth Annual in October, our growth person and one of our product managers, Danielle and Burton, presented on how we moved the barcode scanner from behind the paywall. When we actually made that change, we grandfathered in free users to that change, and that change was only for new users as well. We've always had just a tradition of doing that, just because, again, we we love our users, and we feel like whatever bargain they entered into whenever they came to us, we try to keep as much as possible.

David BernardYeah, and I mean there is that incentive. I I've talked about this on the podcast before. I got in some special deal with uh Headspace where it was, I think I was paying like $3 a month or something, and then at that time, the price had gone up to $12 a month or $60 a year, and I knew if I canceled, when I resubscribed, I'd have to pay a lot more. And so I stuck with that subscription, even though I wasn't even using the app much at the time, …