Savvy Navvy · navigation app for boats
Sell a two-year plan at about 30% off to get cash up front
Biggest win of the year; ad spend now paid back as soon as it's spent
Workedpricingpayments-checkout
What they did
Using US rules that allow payment outside the App Store, added a two-year subscription on web checkout: $183 vs $129/year ($75 off two years, ~30%). Pitched at boat owners who keep boats for years. Revenue per user over two years is about the same, but collected up front, so marketing spend is recovered immediately.
What happened
Called the biggest win of the last 12 months: big impact on CAC payback and how much can be spent on marketing.
- Stage
- Scale (2025-2026, ~$3.5M B2C ARR)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · Why He Crowdfunded Millions Instead of Raising VC — Jelte Liebrand, Savvy Navvy“The benefit for us isn't actually, "Ooh, that's that's more money," it's more money up front, and what that does is really helping on the marketing side with the CAC payback.”
“And so, that's had a huge impact on what we're then able to do on the marketing side and the spend that we can have because we get that back immediately as we spend it.”
Related topics
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More from this episode
- Savvy Navvy: Raise money from your own users through equity crowdfunding instead of VCFirst round 3x oversubscribed in 6 days; ~£1M rounds since; 2,500 investors
- Savvy Navvy: Tell crowd investors the good, the bad and the ugly in every updateWon Seedrs Entrepreneur of the Year, voted by investors; enabled repeat rounds
- Savvy Navvy: Walk the docks with a clipboard and ask every boater what bugs themShowed the problem went far beyond ocean racers; founder says it convinced him
- Savvy Navvy: Put your app in one standout boat maker's dashboard, then announce itMany more manufacturers came asking than expected; now a B2B business
- Savvy Navvy: Include 12 months of the app with new boats, paid for by the boat makerFounder says it feeds a consumer-to-manufacturer flywheel; no numbers
- Savvy Navvy: Give boating instructors the app free and build the teaching tools they ask forInstructors send students to it first; founder says no numbers
- Savvy Navvy: Skip sign-up entirely and create a hidden anonymous account insteadLooked great in the test, fell apart at full rollout; support grief erased gains
- Savvy Navvy: Offer a free tier in the US but charge from day one elsewhere
- Savvy Navvy: Stop all email marketing