Practitioner pattern · Jonathan Parra (Sells paywall design and A/B-testing services to app companies (mentions sales calls and customers 'working with us'))
Show two plans, hide the rest behind 'View all plans', preselect annual
Guest's standard setup; no numbers given
What they did
What happened
In their words
Jonathan Parra - I made 4,000 app paywalls and learned this
Joseph ChoiOkay. Yeah, why why was this This is a pretty dramatic increase. Why was this one so much better?
Jonathan ParraRight. So in a lot of my experiments lately, what I've been doing is kind of simplifying what the user gets from a paywall. So if a user sees all of these options, it's kind of scary, right? You kind of give them some decision fatigue. And a lot of the times now, I I won't even have the product group in the main footer here, I'll kind of hide it behind a view all plans button or something like that.
Jonathan ParraBut in this case, you're first of all highlighting that annual plan, and you also kind of want to Whenever you do have a product group like on the left with three products, you want to have the order of length for the product subscription go from like the longest uh to the shortest or vice versa, right?
Jonathan ParraLike you don't want to split it up like weekly, annual, monthly, you want to have a cadence that follows, you know, either uh descending or ascending uh order for just the product subscription length. And in in this case, like what you're doing here is you are highlighting the 3-day plan, and so you're increasing that free trial conversion rate.
Jonathan ParraAnd you're showing that, yeah, the weekly has no plan, but you looking at this customer, you also know that, oh, LTV for yearly is highest and and ARPU is highest, so you want to nudge customers to subscribe to the yearly plan. And so you still have that selected, but you give them that that weekly plan offer with uh "Start my 3-day free trial" copy.
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More from this episode
- Shorten plan names, add 'No commitment, cancel anytime', and label the button 'Continue'+10% conversion over the wordier paywall
- Cut the monthly plan; offer annual plus a weekly plan with 3 free daysBig conversion jump per the slide; exact number not read out
- Put 'No commitment, cancel anytime' on almost every paywallSmall but steady conversion bump, per the guest
- When users close the paywall, show cheaper plans, then a 33%-off yearly dealNo result given; guest's go-to for apps that already test a lot
- For week- or month-long programs, show step by step how users will changeWorks across categories for journey-style apps, per the guest; no numbers
- Keep one-time offers at 25-33% off; save big sales for Black Friday
- Swap the feature table for 'Try it for 50% off' and a big screenshot+111% conversion; revenue per user also rose
- Make the paywall button about 65 points tall, with big text and an arrowGuest says bigger buttons and the arrow bump conversions; no numbers
- Start with a one-page paywall: headline, bullet list, reviews, buttonOne of the few layouts that performs well across categories, per the guest
- Test paywall design and plan mix first; leave price tests for laterGuest says design tests give the most mileage; no numbers
- Put a short video of the app in use on the paywallWon its A/B test; no numbers given
- Make the paywall look like a plain Apple settings screenBeat more custom designs 'by quite a long shot'; worked again for a second app
- Give the top plan a dark, premium look that switches when users pick itMore users chose the top plan; no numbers
- Show the free trial as a timeline: today, day-5 reminder, day-7 billingStill a very high performer after years of copying, per the guest
- Charge about $20 a month for an AI chat app tuned to one nicheUsers pay for it, per the guest; no revenue shared
Tags: plan-picker, decision-fatigue, annual-plan, view-all-plans