A niche subscription app · B2C · guest's 2022 acquisition
Buy an app that ranks #1 but charges $2, then add a $60/year hard paywall
Revenue up from $1-2K to $8-10K a month with the same downloads
Workedexit-mapaywallpricing
What they did
Couldn't outrank an app for a keyword wanted for a client, downloaded it and saw it was undermonetized: #1 for two keywords with ~28 and ~34 search volume, 100-150 downloads/day, one-time $2-3 price, no onboarding paywall. Benchmarked price on a similar client app doing ~$1M ARR at $60/year. Bought it (2022), added onboarding and a paywall (mid-May), went fully hard paywall with a trial at $60/year in June. No new features and no extra downloads.
What happened
Monthly revenue went from ~$1-2K to ~$8-10K on the same 100-150 downloads/day. Hard paywall brings some one-star reviews.
- Stage
- Exit (post-acquisition)
This shipped together with other changes, so the result can't be credited to this alone.
“It was just charging a one-time fee of like $2, $3. No paywall on onboarding, no nothing. It was just very much undermonetized.”
“So hard paywall, increasing $60 a year, it went from $1,000 to $2,000 a month to $8,000 to $10,000 a month with just 100 to 150 downloads.”
Related topics
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