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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Sub Club Podcast, a show dedicated to the best practices for building and growing app businesses. We sit down with the entrepreneurs, investors and builders behind the most successful apps in the world to learn from their successes and failures. Sub Club is brought to you by RevenueCat. Thousands of the world's best apps trust RevenueCat to power in app purchases, manage customers, and grow revenue across iOS and Android and the web. You can learn more@revenuecat.com let's get into the show. Hello, I'm your host, David Barnard. Today's conversation is shorter than usual and will be featured in revenuecat State of Subscription Apps Report. Each episode in this series will explore one crucial metric and share actionable insights from top subscription app operators. With me today, Silvan Gushet, the Director of Revenue Strategy US at Babel and Chief Insights Miner at Grojims. On the podcast I talked with Sylvain about top strategies for paywall optimization, the danger of over optimizing, and why the screen before your paywall might actually matter more than your paywall. Hey Sivan, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today.
- [01:20]
B
Hey David, excited to be here. I got some good stuff for you. Looking forward to diving.
- [01:24]
A
All right, you've been, you've been mining gems all year and I wanted to talk through some of the best paywall related gems you've mined this year. So for those who don't know Sylvain, he runs something called Growth Gems where he watches all the industry videos and listens to podcasts and then kind of shares the top tips, mines the gems from those. And you had some doozies this year and we wanted to focus today on paywalls and monetization. What I wanted to do is go through the top few gems related to paywalls, kind of trends. Like what's been new and exciting in 2024 that you think people should be implementing in 2025 if they haven't already this year. So let's kick it off. What's the first it's got to be the most important gem of all. What's your top gem for 2024 on paywalls?
- [02:15]
B
It's actually kind of framing the discussion, kind of jam. It's actually on everything leading to the paywall because I'd be remiss if I don't talk about that at all. So the gem is from Daryl Stone, that used to be at Citizen. I forgot where he is right now. So the gem is get your users excited about your product by telling the world story through the flows that present the Paywall, think about the user mindset when they open the app and the story you reveal to them through the onboarding so that when they see the paywall, it's contextualized. I think that story, especially focusing on the very beginning and kind of your hook in the onboarding and kind of the peak end rule of handing strong before the paywall is what will make the paywall successful or a big part of it.
- [02:58]
A
Any other examples of apps that you think do an incredible job leading up to the paywall?
- [03:03]
B
Yeah, leading up. I mean, Riot Sleep is one that is often mentioned. I particularly like the hook and kind of the story they tell at the beginning. Same thing in terms of the hook. Endo how we feel. I discovered an app yesterday called 222 that has like a video essentially onboarding and hook at the beginning. That's pretty amazing. So yeah, I think those are doing great.
- [03:23]
A
Awesome. All right, gem number two.
- [03:25]
B
Gem number two. It's about loss aversion as part of the onboarding. Have onboarding questions, then a generic paywall, then more questions related to specific premium features or even have users set up those premium features, then have a feature paywall and say these are part of the premium plan. The way that works because, you know, to try and explain it visually is essentially you have people set up features throughout the onboarding, then you present them with the, with a paywall that essentially, you know, it's like now get there, get it. And if they don't get it, you explain to them everything they're going to lose and they're going to essentially lose everything that they set up. So there's some sunk cost fallacy. And the idea is that the project themselves during onboarding you show that after they reject the initial paywall and it's that loss of version that pushes them to convert.
- [04:17]
A
Yeah, that's a great one. All right, next gem.
- [04:20]
B
Next gem. There are multiple things you should test displaying during the paywall experience. A list of features, an explanation of how the free trial works, social proof, a comparison of basic versus pro plan. This can be done for a long scrollable screen or multi screen paywall. And this is from Ekaterina who is at Mimo and she was mentioning that at Mimo, the multi screen option led to a 60% increase in the trial opt in rate. And I've been seeing those multi screen paywalls more and more, especially for free trial, where, you know, instead of showing the Blinkist timeline, they actually break it down in multiple screens to tell you what's going to happen. In two days, what's going to happen in five days, et cetera. But it can work also from, you know, if you don't have a free trial. And essentially what I like about it, I guess it's, it blurs the line between what's onboarding and what's a paywall. It's like if you have a screen before the paywall, is that part of the onboarding, is that part of the paywall? But it gives you that possibility to show benefits, explain better the actual like transactional aspect and have kind of like some last minute pitch or recap to push people over the edge.
- [05:27]
A
Yeah, that's such a great one as well. I would guess that part of why this works, and this is just maybe a truism that you should use throughout your entire onboarding even is that people don't read. So if you have a lot to say, a long paywall can work, especially for a hard paywall because then people maybe will take the time to scroll if you have a hard paywall and they don't have an option but to read. But if you don't have a hard paywall especially and it's a freemium product and you have a lot you want to communicate, communicating it in smaller chunks that are easier to digest in multiple steps is a great way to take the things that you would think should be on the paywall, but can actually be kind of one at a time stepped through in a way that, and you were saying this earlier is with the first gem from Darrell about what's leading up to the paywall is that this is like the perfect example of like really controlling those last few steps before the paywall with like really strong messaging and again messaging that you maybe think should be on the paywall, but by putting it in individual pages it can just be so much more impactful.
- [06:32]
B
And the choice between long paywall and multi screen, I mean that's something you want to test. But I agree, if you have a long paywall, you typically going to get only the real explorers scrolling down and dividing it into pieces is usually helpful to get people to really see it. Also an often main mistake is you know, your plans are not above the fold. If you had a long paywall because you decided to put too much stuff on it and then you miss out.
- [06:56]
A
This is actually fairly easy to test. So if you currently have a long paywall, take that paywall, break it up into three or four pages and experiment with a multi stage paywall because you might be surprised just how well that performs compared to the long paywall 100%. All right, next gem.
- [07:13]
B
Next gem is from Thoma Petit, favorite growth consultant. It's the conversion behavior of users during onboarding and post onboarding is different. So you probably want a different paywall for the two. When you a B test your paywall, separate the analysis between the onboarding paywall and the post onboarding paywalls. And I like it because typically you think one paywall but you essentially displayed in a bunch of places. So you can make one change to your paywall that's going to help right at the end of the onboarding or even during onboarding. But that can hurt after. And same thing can be true the opposite. If you start showing that free versus pay chart on your first paywall, then you're probably going to hurt yourself. But if you use it as a second paywall later on when some people access a feature, you're actually helping them understand what they could get in addition because they're probably already know to some extent what they can get for free since they did not convert initially.
- [08:06]
A
This can be relatively low hanging fruit though. So like if you do have a paywall that has a description of each of your main premium features so that when a user taps on that specific feature, they see kind of the pitch for that feature more prominently, those kind of things can probably be done fairly straightforward. And then again, even if you're not super sophisticated about analysis, you can maybe form a hypothesis that if they tap on a specific premium feature and you are selling that premium feature more prominently. So maybe, you know, there's, there's ways to maybe do it easier and less sophisticated and still make it work. But I think you're totally right. It's like it's too easy to get lost in the weeds and like spend way too much time over optimizing when you're early. You know, if you're making 100k a month or more, like these are the kind of things that are going to help you get from 100 to 200 to 500 to a million is starting to optimize things like this.
- [08:57]
B
Yeah, in the end you need to do the math. We will rise prioritization and see if that's let's say a better opportunity than changing something in your onboarding. And maybe it depends, you know, if you have revenue CAD and it's easy to do, then yeah, there's an effort that's limited so you can turn that over pretty quickly. You actually set up things very nicely for the next gen with about impulse. It's from the 2.5 Gamers Show. And it was mostly Jacob Ramier that was presenting it. And essentially it goes like this. It's create feature quiz report specific paywalls focusing on what the user could get based on what triggered the paywall. When they close this specific paywall, show a pop up telling them about all the benefits they get with premium access. If they decline again, give them the option to access the initial feature through iap. So it's essentially a multi layer thing where you saw a specific feature, you click on it and you get a payroll that's specific to that content you try to access is unlock it with premium. But if you don't unlock it, you reiterate everything else you can get with premium. So you have essentially a second paywall that says here's everything else you can get with premium. And if they close it, then you have an IAP in your purchase to give them access just to that one feature or piece of content. And so you piece it like that to hopefully increase conversion and target people, you know, alongside the demand curve.
- [10:25]
A
Yeah, I really like this one. And at App Growth Annual and we weren't able to share the recording, but at App Growth Annual, employee from Google, Tammy was sharing how much Google is seeing. Apps that use hybrid monetization have been really succeeding. And I think this is something folks who are focused on iOS can actually learn from Android and it might be just as impactful if not more on iOS. And that's this idea of hybrid monetization is like if somebody is willing to pay for something but they're not quite ready to pay for the whole experience and subscribe and have recurring payments like, you know, some people are just not wanting to subscribe. You know, they have so many subscriptions. Even when you have a ton of subscriptions, if you find it valuable, you're going to pay, but then they might be enticed by these single in app purchases. So again, probably not something early stage that you want to get too sophisticated with to your point earlier. But it can be a powerful unlock to kind of get them to pay, experience the value and then want more. So yeah, I think it's fantastic.
- [11:30]
B
Yeah, with exactly that same caveat on, on your growth stage, it absolutely might not be the thing you want to focus on if you're early. And the same thing goes with, you know, anything you're price testing to death and haven't tested anything else, you're missing out. So you need to go in areas where you don't have diminishing returns. Or where you have big opportunities.
- [11:48]
A
All right, what's the next gem?
- [11:50]
B
The next gem is also from Thomapet, and its aggressiveness of monetization comes in many different shades. And those tricks often work. So you can have free trial toggles, Wheel of Fortune on or after the payroll backup offers, but you need to find the balance so you don't give an overall scammy feeling. And we end with kind of framing. The discussion again is like, how many of those tricks are you going to layer into your app? And how much is that in line with your app, its concept, your audience? Or how much is that going to maybe annoy them and deteriorate the brand perception?
- [12:28]
A
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this. I actually recently did a podcast with a golfing app, and I loved the way Alex, the CEO there, I love the way he framed being more conscientious of your users. And the example he gave was that he actually has imaginary conversations with users in his head anytime he's writing copy, building features, going through flows. And so I think this is a perfect example of, like, if somebody walks into a golf shop, they would expect somebody to walk up and say, hey, what are you interested in today? You're looking for clubs. You need some balls. That's expected, right? And, like, that's not annoying when somebody asks, hey, you need some help. But then if they follow up and they're like. And you say, oh, no, I'm just browsing. And they're like, oh, we have this and oh, we have that, and they like, follow you around the store. It's like, that's awkward, right? That's the experience. Like, we don't, like, as, like, humans. And so I think this is actually like a really good kind of like, analogy to draw. Is like, go through your own onboarding and have a conversation in your head with the user. It's like, okay, this page says that. Like, how does that make the user feel? What do they say if I'm talking to another human being or role play with colleagues or something? And like, how does it feel going through all this? And I think this point from Thomas and kind of the way you shared it is really good that, like, if you layer on too many of these, it starts to feel like that used car salesman. And like, if you're spending a ton of money on ads and like, you gotta hit that roas and the brand isn't important to you, you're okay with higher churn or whatever. Like, maybe you do layer on a bunch of these together and like it just it is what it is. It can be very effective. But I think you need to do that kind of with full realization of how you make your users feel and then what that means to the like long term performance of the business. Because as he and I talked about again on that podcast, is that a lot of consumer subscriptions, there's so much churn. And so if you're using all of these tactics and laying on so many, you should expect higher churn because you're doing kind of a high pressure sale which then leaves the user not as fond of the brand and maybe a little more on edge. So yeah, I think this, I think is a fantastic way to kind of wrap up this whole paywall optimization conversation is that you can go too far and that that may not be good for the business even if the A B test is successful. Awesome. Well Silvan, this has been so much fun chatting through these gems. Anything you wanted to share as we wrapped up?
- [14:59]
B
No, I mean go visit Growth Gems on Substack. Subscribe to the newsletter. I have awesome content coming up. I think it's going to become a must read for anybody in subscription apps, so go check it out.
- [15:11]
A
Awesome. Thanks so much for joining me today.
- [15:12]
B
Have a good one.
- [15:16]
A
Thanks so much for listening. If you have a minute, please leave a review in your favorite podcast player. You can also stop by chat.subclub.com to join our private community.