RevenueCat recently published a 339-page

report covering over 115,000

apps and over 16 billion dollars in

total revenue. I analyzed the entire

thing. And what I found in this report

is that there is a huge gap between the

winners and the losers [music]

in the app space. One of the biggest

factors in these app success is their

paywall, their paywall strategy, their

pricing strategy. [music] The bottom 25%

of apps shrank 33% year over year. And

this gap is not random. It's because

[music] the top app companies in the

world are leveraging the most recent and

up-to-date paywall strategies. [music]

So, in this video, we are going to break

down exactly what the top 25% of apps

are doing and why most app founders get

[music] this completely wrong. Only 4.6%

of apps ever reach $10,000 per month.

And it's not because they have bad

products, they have bad code, or the

founders have no idea what they're

doing. It's because they're not

leveraging the latest and greatest

marketing and paywall tactics. Let's get

into it. Okay, here we have it. The 100

paywalls study. We're going to be

covering absolutely everything from the

market research to designing a paywall

to positioning your paywall and, of

course, how to test your paywall to

maximize your LTV. First things first,

let's get into the stats. I've been

saying for years that hard paywalls

crush the freemium paywalls, and here's

the data to back that up. So, all of you

in the comments who have been telling me

that hard paywalls don't work, nobody

likes hard paywalls, you're wrong.

Here's why. Hard paywalls crush. They

convert five times better than freemium,

but, of course, there are downsides and

the advantage disappears over the long

run. So, yes, after a long period of

time, if your attention is insane, you

will make the money back. But for most

people out there, people aren't

retaining in your app for a year plus.

So, having a hard paywall will get you a

return on your investment so much

faster. Does it add extra friction into

your app? Sure. But you are able to

convert at a much higher percentage and

get the return on your spend, your

marketing spend back much quicker.

Another important stat to keep in mind

from this research is that the window to

win is closing. 55%

of all cancellations happen on day zero,

the first day that someone has your app

installed. So, it is imperative that you

deliver the users the aha moment, the

key value inside of your app as quick as

possible. Guide the users to success.

What does success look like in your app?

Because if you don't do that quickly,

they will leave and they will cancel.

Some more interesting stats here before

we dive into implementing all these

strategies. The geography of your

installs does also matter. Where you are

marketing, the types of users, where

your users are coming from does matter.

Of course, North America driving the

highest return on spend followed by Asia

Pacific and Western Europe. Also, the

average revenue per install split by

plan duration. This is something I wish

I knew when I was scaling Puff Count.

Apps that sell yearly subscriptions

primarily monetize two times better than

other groups in the first 14 days and

they still hold that advantage at day

60. So, if you have a yearly plan, you

are doing it right and we're going to

show you how to optimize for your yearly

plan on your hard paywall. And on that

same token, offering a yearly plan

shouldn't be the only option. A majority

of apps are offering two plans. So,

we're going to keep that in mind when we

talk about designing and shipping our

paywalls. I have this entire RevenueCat

report along with other helpful links on

this document. So, if you want this

document, it's going to be in the

description. And we're going to keep

referring to this RevenueCat report as

we start to talk about design,

positioning, and testing paywalls. But,

you can also do your own market research

using paywall screens and screens

design. These two tools are extremely

helpful. Paywall screens will show you

all of the paywalls. You can view them

and preview them all right here. You can

see exactly how much each one of these

apps are making and exactly which

paywall they're using. On top of that,

screens design is very helpful because

they will show you not only the paywalls

and the monthly revenue, but they will

also show you the user onboarding for

each and every app. The onboarding is

priming for the paywall, so keeping in

mind and studying the onboardings of

each one of these successful apps is

also very important to the success of

the paywall itself. Use paywall screens,

use Screenshield's design, use the

RevenueCat report when you were doing

market research. When you were thinking

about designing your paywall, look at

what the other most successful apps in

your niche are doing. How many plans

they're offering? What is the pricing?

How long is their onboarding? What are

they asking users in the onboarding? All

of this information should play a role

when you plan on designing your paywall.

And following these exact strategies and

keeping a holistic picture of your app,

your paywall, your onboarding is very

important. That's how I was able to

scale Puff Count to 45K per month. It

wasn't just because we had an optimized

paywall. We had the onboarding prior to

the paywall priming the users. So, make

sure you keep a holistic view of your

app and its onboarding while you think

about designing your paywall. Now, let's

get into actually putting the paywall

together. What is the most optimal

design for our paywall? The most

important part is clarity over

complexity. Make your paywall easy to

understand at a glance. If you try to

make your users do too much thinking,

calculation, whatever it may be, they

will leave and they will not pay you.

The paywall is the most important screen

in your app because it is the decision

point that your users are making whether

or not they're going to pay for your app

or not. Duolingo executed this

perfectly. They prioritize clarity over

persuasion on their paywalls. They used

shorter trials and they added friction

to trial reminders. Now, what does this

look like in practice? We can go over to

Screenshield's design and we can see

exactly what Duolingo was doing in their

paywall. Clarity over persuasion. They

would show users a timeline of exactly

what happens during their trial and we

can see that in action here. This is not

their real paywall screen yet. Start my

free week. Boom, a timeline. They'll

remind you in 2 days before the trial

ends. Clarity, trust building. And then

boom, they hit you with the real

paywall. So, they are building trust and

clarity for the users by telling them

the timeline of what's going to happen

in their trial. Another amazing example

of this is Cal AI. After their

onboarding, they hit you with this

screen. Not a real paywall screen yet.

We want you to try our product for free.

We'll send you a reminder before the

trial ends. And then, boom, the real

paywall screen. Very clear, building

trust, and that will help you convert

more users. The key important thing to

remember here is the users actually have

to turn on push notifications to be

reminded. So, that adds a little bit of

friction to the trial reminders, and

ultimately helped Duolingo boost a lot

of their conversions. Your job on the

paywall is not to dazzle and overload

your users. It is to convince them there

is no reason not to pay or start the

free trial. Probably the most important

part of your paywall is the price point

that you choose. And if you take

anything away from this video, it should

be this point right here. Something that

I've been saying for a long time and get

pushed back on, price your app as high

as possible. Here's the data to support

it. High-priced apps generate, on

average, $36 of monthly LTV as a median,

5.4 times higher than low-priced apps at

$6.67. Mid-priced apps perform at

roughly half of the high-priced

applications. It's very simple in

practice. Charge more, and you will

increase the lifetime value of your

customers. Don't be afraid to AB test

and charge as much as humanly possible.

It will make marketing and scaling your

app so much easier. And here is the data

to support it. Charge more, and of

course, use a hard paywall. Hard

paywalls, higher prices, will make you

more money. So, now that you understand

the research behind designing a winning

paywall, let's talk about how to

actually build it. Again, clarity over

complexity, highlight the key value

proposition, social proof and trust

indicators must be on your paywall, or

at least your onboarding. And something

that a lot of people miss, you can

customize your paywall if possible. So,

let's get into the best way to design

and build a paywall. And of course, 99

designs is your best option. The paywall

screen is ultimately the most important

screen in your app, so it needs to be

designed in the best way possible. You

shouldn't be throwing this on Google

Paint and sketching out your own

paywall. Don't do that. Invest in your

paywall. It is the most important screen

in your app. And the best way to get a

screen designed is through 99 designs

and running a competition. Here is the

winning paywall that helped us scale to

45k per month for Puffcount. I got it

done on 99 designs. I got over 91

different paywalls designed, and I only

picked my favorite. This one, of course,

ended up being the winner. And this is

the one that we moved forward with. As

you can see, clear value prop at the

top, user reviews, building that user

trust, that social proof, and then a

little description of the plan that is

required by Apple, and then of course,

the paywall button here, restore

purchases, terms and conditions. This

was a clean paywall and the one we moved

forward with. Superwall also has proven

one-click templates that can get you

started. So, if you have a lower budget

and you don't want to run a 99 designs

contest, you can use Superwall's

templates and build your paywall

directly in Superwall. And this is

exactly what I did. I took my winning

design from 99 designs, and then we

pulled it into Superwall, and we built

different variations of this. And we

tested slightly different designs as

well. We tested two plans. We tested

different button text, and we'll get

into that in a second. But ultimately,

the core principles that you need to

keep in mind when designing your

paywall, it needs to look professional,

it needs to look clean, and take

inspiration from your biggest

competitors. Now, let's move on to

positioning your paywall. When and how

should you show your paywall? Before we

get into this, let's understand the

statistics. 50% of all app conversions

happen on day zero, the first day that

someone has your app downloaded. And

that's because day zero, the first time

they download your app, is when the

users care the most about your app. If

you're relying on them to come back

inside of your app and upgrade later,

and you don't have our paywall, it's

going to be so much more difficult for

you. And that's why, as you can see the

stats here, hard paywalls convert five

times better than freemium because you

are forcing the user to convert on day

zero. Here we have the founder of

Aperture emphasizing this. 50% of paid

conversions happen on day zero. So, it's

very important that you're pushing a

hard paywall and you're making the users

convert when they first download your

app when they care the most. And using

an onboarding, which we'll get into a

second, is so very important in

encouraging those users to convert on

day zero on your hard paywall. And what

she mentions here is also very

important. If you show the hard paywall

instantly before building any trust with

the users, it will feel like a demand,

not a simple next step. And this is why

we had the long onboarding on Puff Count

before the paywall. The users came in,

we built trust, we showed them the

value, we displayed social proof, we

customized their experience using a long

survey, we targeted the pain that the

users were feeling in the survey, and

only then did we show them the hard

paywall. People clown me all the time

for having a long onboarding. People

clown me for having a hard paywall. The

data speaks for itself. The top apps in

the world, the top app founders, are

also doing the same thing. Why would you

do anything different? You need to build

context around why someone should pay

for your app. If you show your paywall

without showing any context, the users

will not convert. You don't even need to

just take my word for it. Here are four

other apps doing the exact same thing

with their onboarding and their paywall.

per month calorie tracking app, a $10

per month period tracking app, $12 per

month language learning app, a $1 per

month note-taking app, and of course,

here's my app, Puff Count, up here.

Every single one of these is doing the

same exact thing. Let's take a look.

Intro screen, onboarding, questionnaire,

and then they have a hard paywall.

Right here. That's Cal AI, the period

tracking app. Intro screen, onboarding,

asking a bunch of questions, a lot of

questions, boom, hard paywall. Duolingo,

same thing. We've already looked at

their product. Lot of questions,

paywall. $1 million per month in

note-taking app Cocoa Note, long

onboarding, hard paywall. A majority of

successful apps on the App Store are

doing the exact same blueprint. Why

would you do anything different? Another

cheat code that I want to pull in is

again based on the RevenueCat research,

most of these apps are offering a yearly

plan and a monthly plan. And only on the

yearly plan are they ever offering a

free trial. That way you are pushing

users to the yearly plan and getting a

higher return quicker so that you can

reallocate that spend into marketing.

And finally, the most important part of

building a successful paywall is to

always be testing. You need to AB test

absolutely everything in your onboarding

and your paywall for it to convert at

its absolute maximum potential. And the

number one question that I always get is

how long should I test my paywall? It's

not about time, it's about volume. You

can AB test your paywall in an hour or

it could take you a year. It all depends

on the amount of users you're getting to

view your paywall. The more data you

have, the more users you have going

through your paywall, the more confident

you will be on your data. And you should

be AB testing absolutely everything. You

should be AB testing your paywall and

your onboarding flow, and let me show

you what that looks like. In Superwall,

you can build campaigns where you test

multiple different paywalls, and you can

split the amount of users seeing each

paywall. So, to test these five, we

split each paywall into 20% sectors so

that each paywall would get an equal

amount of views. And then you will see

the results. So, here for this one, we

were AB testing the header wording of

our paywalls. And as you can see, there

was a clear winner. This one, the track

your usage header wording, had a much

higher estimated average revenue per

user. It was $1.15 compared to the

lowest one at 39 cents. We were earning

$1.15 per user that saw this paywall,

which is much higher than everything

else. Superwall will use the testing

method, the AB testing method called

Bayesian analysis. You should build

campaigns and be AB testing every single

part of your paywall. We tested

different pricing. We tested annual

options. We tested discounts. We tested

absolutely everything until we landed on

the paywall that gave us the highest

lifetime value per install. And on top

of that, we also AB tested our entire

onboarding flow. We tested every single

different screen in our onboarding flow

to ensure that users weren't dropping

off before they saw the paywall. We used

Mixpanel to AB test and build custom

events for every different onboarding

screen, but Superwall just launched AB

testing user onboarding flows, so you

can do this all through Superwall now.

But, the main point being, we wanted to

ensure that through our onboarding, we

were building positive friction. It's

fine that some users are dropping off in

between our different onboarding

screens, but ultimately, we want to

retain a high percentage of those users.

91% of users got through our onboarding

and 27% started the free trial. And all

this data was out of 196,000

users. So again, we're testing every

single one of these screens. We're

testing the drop-off rate between each

one of these screens. And if one of

these screens produced a high drop-off

rate, we would either change it or

completely remove it. This is building

the sunk cost bias. This is walking the

user through their problem. And our

conversion rate on our paywall jumped

tremendously after we introduced this

onboarding and we had AB tested

everything in our onboarding to ensure

that we were building that positive

friction. And again, we were very

confident in this data because we had

125,000

users come through this onboarding flow.

So, the data was very solid. Same with

our paywall campaigns. We had tens of

thousands of views on each one of these

paywalls, and that is why we're so

confident on the data. Another thing

that is very important to keep in mind,

you need to use the scientific method

when you are testing your different

paywalls. We only tested one thing at a

time. First, I recommend that you test

your pricing, and that should be the

only thing that you're changing on your

paywall. Then, you can move on to the

less important stuff like the header

wording, maybe even the user reviews on

your paywall. Only test one thing at a

time. And that includes your onboarding.

Don't change your entire onboarding and

change your entire paywall and test both

of those at the same time. If you change

more than one thing at once, you will

never understand what is driving the

actual real change within your tests.

And again, the overall goal in testing

your paywall, in testing your onboarding

should be optimizing for your LTV, but

not only that, the speed of return of

your investment. This is why you see so

many apps optimizing for a yearly plan

because they get the entire yearly plan

upfront. They get more cash upfront as

opposed to a weekly or monthly plan. If

you're getting more money back quickly,

you can use that money to scale your

spend, your marketing efforts much, much

faster. To help you visualize what AB

testing your paywall looks like, it's

not just your paywall that is going to

affect the results, right? It is your

marketing, it is also your onboarding.

And again, following the scientific

method, you should be optimizing your

paywall first. So, we need to test all

of these things, but let's start first

with the paywall, which is what I did

for PuffCount. I AB tested four, five,

honestly, like tens of different

paywalls, and then we found our winning

paywall. And then we worked backwards,

and we've tested different onboarding

flows. We tested different lengths of

screens, different questions, and we

found our most optimal onboarding. Even

after that, we AB tested different

marketing angles. We AB tested different

paid ads, and we found our winning

couple of paid ad videos. And you need

to AB test each and every one of these

steps individually, and eventually, you

will find your best marketing videos,

you will find your most optimal

onboarding, and you will find your most

optimal paywall. And once you do all of

these things, you will have the winning

formula to scale your app to the moon

because you've optimized absolutely

every step of your funnel. You've

optimized the marketing message. You

have the winning onboarding that you

know converts users and primes them for

the correct paywall, and you've

maximized your LTV. So, ideally, your

LTV is much greater than what you spend

on acquiring customers on this side, and

this is how the best apps in the world

scale. It's science, it's numbers, it's

AB testing. Do not give up, just get

enough data in your app, and you can be

very confident that you will get a

return on your spend. If you need help

building, optimizing, or scaling your

app, your paywalls, your onboarding in

general, I put together a group of

founders, and we meet every single week

to talk about exactly these strategies.

We talk about marketing, onboarding,

paywall strategies, everything to do

around building and scaling successful

mobile apps. So, if you want to join

that group, shoot me a DM on Instagram

at steven.builds, and I'll get back to

you there. Hopefully, you enjoyed the

video. If you watched this far, you

probably got value from it. So, drop a

like on the video. I'd greatly

appreciate it, and be sure to subscribe

to the channel because I'll be dropping

videos just like this all the time. I'll

see you on the next one. Peace.