GTM Sauce

Super Unlimited · B2C · free VPN app

Test modern, prettier store screenshots against your plain old ones

Modern designs lost 80% of tests; winners gave no meaningful lift, so old ones stayed

Failedasoexperimentation

What they did

Ran methodical A/B tests of App Store screenshots: modernized designs, new colors, new content, plus per-region localized variants. Kept changes small because the app is #1 for 'VPN' and big listing changes are risky. Existing screenshots are simple and show streaming logos (HBO, Netflix).

What happened

About 80% of modernized screenshot tests lost; the other ~20% won only slightly with no meaningful difference. They reverted to the original screenshots in many cases. Named the year's biggest fail/surprise.
Effort
Many organized A/B tests across regions over the past year

In their words

How the World's #1 VPN App Reached 1 Billion Downloads – Tanuj Chatterjee, Super Unlimited

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David BarnardThe biggest thing I noticed was that you use logos like HBO and Netflix. And so you're kind of telling people, "Get access to these services no matter where you are."But is that intentional? Any lessons for you on screenshots? Have they just not mattered? Have you experimented all with them?

Tanuj ChatterjeeYeah, screenshot has been the biggest mystery for us. So we have tried. So of course, for different regions and all, we try different screenshots, localization and whatnot that everybody does, but our screenshots, and you've been very polite, they're a bit stale. They look a little stale. And we have tried modernizing screenshots. And I have to say, 80% of the time when we do AB tests, they lose.

Tanuj ChatterjeeAnd it's like, "Huh, people just like to see what they were used to seeing." So in many cases, we have gone back to the original ones that we had. In some cases, like I said, 20% of the cases, they do work slightly, but we have not seen any meaningful difference when we experimented with screenshots.

Tanuj ChatterjeeWe also don't, because we are number one on ASO, we also don't do massive changes at the same because it's very risky. So we have done tweaks, we have done new screenshots, we have done AB tests, we've changed the colors, we've changed what the content, we've done all of those things in a very organized, methodical way, but most of them have not produced results that we were expecting.

Tanuj ChatterjeeAlthough, you would think that they're better and more modern and should be more compelling in 2026, but it doesn't work. So again, I think the data is proving us wrong, which is fine. It is what the truth is.

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Tags: app-store, screenshots, store-listing-test, design