GlamUp · B2C · AI makeup glow-up app
Triple the weekly price from $3 to $9
Conversion rate went up despite the 3x price
What they did
What happened
In their words
Nicole Cheung - she makes $400k/mo from ai apps (while in college)
Nicole CheungI don't think we had an annual plan. I think it was only weekly and monthly.
Joseph ChoiOh, I see. Okay, weekly and monthly. And then Yeah, it's very It's a very like low price point, $3 a week, and then $9 a week. Yeah, one of the things that stuck out in the in the playbook doc was like when you raised your price from 3 to 9, like you tripled your price, it somehow increased your conversion rate. Like, how does that work?
Nicole CheungI have no idea. But you know what's something really crazy? The new app that I built that I launched 3 months ago, we just raised the pricing by 20%, and the conversion also increased. And I think it's because it depends on the demand. Maybe, like I'm like I'm kind of just like talking out of my ass right now, but like I feel like when you find an app that you really want to use, your demand for it is relatively inelastic. Seeing that like maybe seeing the price higher will bring the perceived value of the app more, cuz maybe they're like, "Oh, this is so cheap. There's no way, you know, they can do this or do that."
Nicole CheungMaybe that's one way of thinking about it. But I see it not just from GlamUp. I see it from like the the current app that I'm building as well.
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New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Post the same before/after makeup slideshow with one fixed hook, caption and audioFirst post hit 10M views; millions of views a day at peak
- Strip makeup off Pinterest photos, then add it back in-app for big contrastContrast made the slideshows go viral; founder claim
- Find a viral format on your own accounts first, then hire creators to copy itFounder went viral first on all four apps; scaled GlamUp to 30-40 creators
- Let users skip paying by inviting 3 friends with a code1.6M share/code requests; codes flooded TikTok comments; conversion barely dropped
- Put the app name in the copy-paste referral message so TikTok search ranks itSearching 'GlamUp' on TikTok shows only their content; founder claim
- Raise monthly and annual prices 20%, then test another 20%Conversion and revenue per download both rose; second +20% in test
- When people close the paywall, show the same plans at 50% off
- Limit scans per week by plan, and offer a bigger plan when they run out
- Show a fake 'analyzing' scan with blurred results, and run the AI only after payment
- Ask for a rating mid-onboarding; make users tap 'I rated' to continueOther founders who copied it say ratings improved; softer version still works
- After each onboarding question, show a screen on how the app beats the alternativesFounder says it primes users to convert; no numbers
- Skip the annual plan for a job-search app; sell weekly and monthly via Stripe
- Show the paywall right after onboarding, before users can open the app+50% conversion vs letting users try features first
- Put every new creator through a video course with a quiz after each moduleOver half go viral within 2 weeks; 100M monthly views at 200+ active creators
- Recruit creators in influencer-run Discords and on Handshake, then vibe-check them in 15 minutesMany top creators had no experience; founder claim
- Pay creators $10-30 per post plus view bonuses that shrink per view at scaleFounder says the decreasing tiers work best; no numbers
- Give creators line-by-line scripts with the emotion and camera shot for each lineTrained creators averaged hundreds of thousands to millions of views per video
- Film a 6.7-second 'War is over' clip flipping a job tracker cell to 'Accepted'Hundreds of millions of views and many conversions (not attributable)
- Rebuild a hit men's looks app for women, launching a rough MVP in a month1M users in 6 months; ~$150K MRR peak
Tags: price-increase, weekly-plan