Practitioner pattern · Steve P. Young (Sells app growth services and a paid founder community (App Founders))
Show a lower price or bonus for paying on the web instead of in the app
Same-price web checkout hurts conversion; a visible discount matches or beats in-app
Workedpayments-checkoutpricingweb-to-app
What they did
Give users an explicit choice between paying in-app and paying on the web, and make the web option visibly better: either a lower price (Steve suggests pricing the in-app option ~30% higher so the web price nets the same) or the same price plus a bonus (e.g. pay in app $30, pay on web and get a 1,000-coin bonus). Start with payment links (live within about a week via Appcharge) and A/B test the offer. Extra benefit: web revenue arrives in days instead of the ~45-day store payout.
What happened
Across apps Steve has seen, same-price web checkout lowered conversions, while a visible discount produced equal or greater conversions.
- Stage
- monetization
“if you have the same price, usually getting people to pay outside of the App Store hurts conversions. But if you allow them to see the difference in price and they're knowingly choosing to pay on the web, that's when we've seen equal, if not greater, conversions when we do it this way”
“Charge 30% more so that you get the same price, right?”
“Pay in app for $30, pay on web and you get a $1,000 bonus.”
Related topics
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