Mosaic Group · B2C · app portfolio company
Before rolling out a price test winner, check it still wins if retention drops 10-50%
Annual-heavy price calls sometimes proved wrong a year later; this guards against it
Mixedpricingexperimentation
What they did
Annual retention isn't known when a price test ends, so use the monthly plan's retention change as a proxy, or past price rises ('last time I raised annual 10%...'), and trial-to-paid as a leading indicator. Then sensitize: would the winner still win if retention comes in 10%, 20% or 50% worse? If only a ~5% buffer, don't roll out or roll out cautiously; if it survives a 50% hit, ship it. The proxy is weakest when one plan dominates (e.g. a 70/30 annual/monthly split).
What happened
Some annual-weighted price calls looked wrong once cohorts renewed a year later; others turned out better than expected. Sensitizing became a key learning.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Why Most Apps Hit a Revenue Ceiling (and How to Plan for It) — Patrick Falzon, The App Shop“So, we often ended with price tests, particularly if they were overweight annual subscriptions, sometimes we'd make calls, and then you'd see those cohorts come in a year-plus later and you'd be like, "Ah, that maybe wasn't the right call, unfortunately."”
“What I typically advise people is you're going to look at your AB test results and just sensitize it, to say if retention comes in 10% worse, does it change my answer of if I should roll this out or not?”
“If retention could go down by 50% and that thing's still a winner, like close your eyes and roll it out.”
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