KBMH · B2C · kettlebell home workout app
Spend 3 months testing 30+ paywalls, prices and onboarding lengths
Initial conversion near 30% by end of Q1, settling ~16%; revenue reached 20-25K/month
Workedpaywallpricingonboarding
What they did
Jan-Mar 2025, with traffic but no revenue: tried one-time program purchases, monthly and yearly subscriptions; monthly at $50, then $25, $10, $25, $10; a coupon code with $15 list / $10 with coupon; login placement at start, end, before and after the paywall; free trial vs none; very long vs very short onboarding; hard vs skippable paywall; free content vs none; at least 30 paywall designs (emotional, straight to the point, pain points). Settled on email-only login (random password), later Apple/Google sign-in.
What happened
Initial conversion climbed to almost 30% at end of Q1 2025 then settled ~16%; monthly revenue 20-25K by June-August 2025.
- Stage
- Early (early revenue)
- Effort
- 3 months, 30+ paywall variants
This shipped together with other changes, so the result can't be credited to this alone.
“Monthly, I started with 5 $50 per month, and then 25, then 10, then 25 again, then 10 again. Then we added a coupon code and raised the price to $15 and 10 with the coupon”
“free trials, no trials, a super long onboarding, a super short onboarding, [laughter] tons of different paywalls, a skippable, hard-pay paywall, free content, no free content, and the paywall itself, like I I tried, I think, like at least 30 different paywalls”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- KBMH: Post a workout reel every day until you hit 100, then judge~2,000 followers and a few hundred dollars after 3 months; later the base for 450K
- KBMH: Watch Brendan Kane's podcast talk and do every task in his free workbook20-40K new followers a month; single reels brought 60K and 52K followers
- KBMH: Put a few hundred dollars a month behind your best reelsPart of the 20-40K followers/month growth; not measured on its own
- KBMH: DM every new follower and sell interested ones on a Zoom callA couple hundred dollars in the first 3 months
- KBMH: Launch in 3 weeks with one program and no login screenApp approved despite bugs; grew into a 40K EUR MRR business
- KBMH: Test different screenshots and app names on your App Store pageNew users 2,000 -> 6,000 per quarter with the same social traffic
- KBMH: Right after sign-in, show swipeable slides of what the app doesFounder says it worked very well; no numbers
- KBMH: Ask for an App Store rating in onboarding if users already know youTons of reviews; being moved to make room for the tracking prompt
- KBMH: Offer a free trial only on the yearly plan; monthly has noneHalf choose yearly; 50-60% of trials convert to paid
- KBMH: Give paying users a WhatsApp group where they can talk to the founderFounder says it raised conversion and retention; instant bug and UX feedback
- KBMH: When someone says they love the app, reply with the review link'Works like magic'; no numbers
- KBMH: Hire a senior developer who pushes back on your feature ideasSaved 'enormous' time and money; no numbers
- KBMH: When new users skip the paywall, show a one-time 50% off yearly offerA large share of new revenue; regular subscription revenue unaffected
- KBMH: Show the one-time 50% off yearly offer to every existing free user500+ extra yearly subs and ~25K EUR in 3 weeks, after many refunds
- KBMH: Let creators make their own link and 25%-off code for a 50% commissionMost creators ignored it; active ones earned only $200-300/month
- KBMH: Engage with creators for 3 months, then pay them monthly for a weekly post4 creators signed; likely drive more revenue than tracking shows
- KBMH: Run a plain white image with one line of text as your adCPA about 5x lower than abs-and-promises ads
- KBMH: Turn your best organic reels into Meta adsSomewhat profitable, but well behind the plain text ads
- KBMH: Drop lookalike and interest targeting and let Meta pick the audienceBroad worked much better; lookalikes and men 35+ didn't work
- KBMH: Test 5 new ads a week for installs, then move winners to a sales campaignKeeps testing affordable; not every install winner converts on purchase
- KBMH: Tell Meta every trial start or purchase is a 25 EUR saleAds profitable within 7 days; trial-to-paid stayed stable
- KBMH: Track ads in a daily sheet, subtracting your usual organic sales firstShows ads profitable within 7 days; month on track for 100K EUR
- KBMH: Add web checkout so ad money comes back faster than App Store payouts
- Price at $9.99, $14.99 or $19.99, not odd amounts like $12.49Rounded prices tend to perform better in App Masters' data; no numbers