Calm · B2C · meditation app
Show only a yearly plan on the paywall
Monthly plan was back within 2-3 weeks; observed from outside
What they did
What happened
In their words
Live App Teardowns: App Growth Optimization
HWe got Jake from Cal AI.
Steve P. Young… the breakthrough as well. All right, you're a real one, cuz if I see that message email coming up, I know you ain't a real one. "Steve, before doing a hard or soft paywall, is it better to allow the structure the bigger apps in the small niche use or should I go for a hard paywall always?" Yeah, look, I don't trust the bigger apps. They are big for a reason, right? And even then, like I had a this heated It wasn't a heated debate, but I had a debate with somebody and said, "Look, Calm does this." They were only showing one one plan yearly and I'm like, "Bro, most data most my data tells me two plans convert better than one, three plans convert better than two. That's most apps. Guess what? At the time, Calm did just have the yearly. Guess what, a month, two or three weeks later, they have their monthly back, because it works. We had one client that was doing $10 a year, just $10 a year. They had $1.99 per month, $10 year, and they're like, "Hey, 90% of everybody buys the year." So they removed the monthly from their paywall. Guess what happened to the sales, H? It went down. It went [crying sound effect] So because the $10 looked so much more attractive when you put $1.99 for the month, you're like, "Oh, that's like so cheap, $10." But if you don't take have the $1.99 anchor, people think it's kinda expensive. So that's why I like to Now every test every app is different, but don't always trust what you see with the bigger apps, cuz they're big for a reason. That means they can make a lot of mistakes where we …
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More from this episode
- Put the brand word you target first in the App Store keyword fieldReached #2-3 for 'Apple Wallet'; one app, anecdotal
- Run Apple Ads in every country except the US to find where buyers areFound the Netherlands: same keyword popularity as the US, difficulty 17 vs ~60
- Give Apple Ads max-conversion 5-10 top keywords, a high tap bid and a target install costAgency says it works across clients ($80K for one); 'Basic Plus' setup sometimes beats it
- Drop the $1.99 monthly plan because 90% buy the $10 yearly oneSales went down; the monthly price was the anchor that made $10/year look cheap
- Add a hard paywall to an app that used to be freeWorked well for revenue, but brought many 1-star reviews from people who reinstalled
- Give ad-driven users a hard paywall and App Store searchers a closable oneFounder said it worked really well; no numbers
- Price utility apps at $5 a week, $20 a year, or $30 once
- Give free lifetime access through the Indie App Santa promotionUsers emailed feature requests and said the icon made them download; no numbers
- Test different app icons on a new utility app
- Ask gender in onboarding and show one matching testimonial on the paywallIn use; an A/B test vs ratings was mentioned but the result wasn't stated
- Grow with Meta ads alone before adding any other channel$4M+ ARR for one client and ~$1M MRR for another, Meta only
- Give existing users 3 months' notice before charging for a free app90-99% of existing users happy to pay; new users complained
- Find UGC creators on Collabstr and work with micro-influencersDeveloper calls it a great success; one creator had a big impact; no numbers
- Switch from a paid app to free with purchases, then to subscriptionsMade more money at each step, per the friend; no numbers
- Show different prices depending on what people answer in onboardingHeard it works really well; app unnamed, no numbers
Tags: plan-count, annual-plan, monthly-plan