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TL;DR
Michael Gance of Encore Kit argues nobody owns the 95% of users who hit the paywall and decline — and that’s where the money is. Instead of begging with discounts, give those users a brand-funded gift (a free month of Disney+, Paramount, BetterHelp) that funds a longer trial, so the app gets paid by the brand while re-engaging a lost user. This source belongs to the app-masters-youtube batch.
Biggest lessons
- Obsess over the declining 95%, not the paying 5%. Even great apps convert only ~5% (Apple’s average is 2–3%); your CAC is mostly spent on people who decline at the paywall, yet almost no one builds for that moment.
- Brand-funded gifts beat discounts. Standard paywall-X win-back is ~0.1–0.2%; Encore’s brand offers see ~10% claim rate (10–100x). A BetterHelp claim paid one therapy app >$200 — more than two years of an annual sub.
- Treat the trial as a flexible window. Don’t wait for day 14 — link the premium ask to the user’s magic moment (first period tracked, first great AI chat) and convert then with a discount.
- Reverse trials (John’s data). Give a free week of Pro on paywall exit, drip pro-feature notifications, then leverage loss aversion — conversion went 0.4% → 4.5%.
- Paid intro offers + feature-specific bundles. $1.99 first month renewing at $59.99 converts >50%; sell one clear value prop cheap (a dating “boost” for $2.99) before the full feature set — simpler paywalls win.
- Capture cancellations. A free-trial cancel is a prime moment for a push notification + gift offer; don’t let users silently cancel in settings.
Why it matters
- Extends the wiki’s paywall thinking beyond the first decision to win-back/declined-user monetization — a largely unowned surface.
- Reinforces triggered/momentum-based offers and simpler paywalls as conversion levers.