Natal · B2C · pregnancy and postpartum fitness app
Drop the free trial on the monthly plan
Monthly subs up ~2,000%, annual +21% (founder's rough recall)
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- last year
In their words
How Removing the Free Trial Grew Monthly Subs 2000% – Nancy Anderson, Natal
David BarnardThank you.
Nancy AndersonYou had Zumba on, and they talked about removing the free trial from the monthly option. So we listened to that episode and we were like, "Huh, that does make sense. We should try that," and we did and it crushed.
David BarnardWow.
Nancy AndersonI think our monthly subs went up by 2,000% and our quarterly went up by 46%, our annual went up by 21%, and it just again sort of validated again for me how much trust is being built before the paywall that then they come in, they don't even want or need a trial. They're ready to buy. And it also kind of shows you that each customer is different. Some people, they know what they want, they come in, they're ready, and they just want to commit and get started. So that was just a huge thank you to you actually for having them on and sharing that knowledge. We ran a lot of experience. We learned a lot this year. We had a lot of wins. But that one was... I was shocked that it worked personally. I was like, "That's not going to... Is that going to work?" I don't know. But it worked, and it worked really well. That's what we've continued to do, and we adapted that as a permanent offering.
Nancy AndersonThank you.
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More from this episode
- Sell a program as a monthly 30-day group challenge with before/after photos100 signups in month one, 125 in month two; kept growing
- Run paid social ads before Apple's tracking changeWorked well for a couple of years, then Apple's tracking change hurt it
- Post funny, relatable personal content, not just product postsStories get ~50K views; organic beats competitors' by 90%
- Reply to every DM, comment and email with a real expert within 24 hoursTrial-to-paid ~68% vs 38% typical; not isolated
- End posts with a soft 'learn more' instead of a sales pitch
- Turn down brand deals and affiliate links to keep audience trustGives up an estimated $0.5-1M/year; benefit not measurable
- Turn the questions people keep asking in DMs into your main programOver 1M users; still the top traffic driver
- Merge several niche apps into one app users keep across life stagesLess confusion and a lower price; ARR +20% in Q1 2026
- Narrow to pre- and postnatal fitness and rename the brand away from the founder
- Have your in-house expert coaches film the brand's videosFounder says it's working well; no numbers
- Ask 10-15 onboarding questions and show only content for the user's stage
- Build a new program for every client requestBiggest fail of the year: too many choices, users didn't start
- Offer a free posture check by a real expert that picks the first workout68-70% who finish it complete their first workout
- DM every new user personally and invite them to a coach-run community31% of community joiners return on day 2; no baseline
- Never give away free workouts or freebies
- Let people pay with their health savings account (HSA) at checkoutTens of thousands of dollars in two weeks, unpromoted
- Push 'spend your HSA dollars before they expire' at year end
- Raise subscription pricesARR still grew 20% that quarter
- Pay influencers to post about the brand
Tags: remove-free-trial, monthly-plan, copied-tactic