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TL;DR
Steven Cravotta's five-step paywall framework that took Puff Count’s install→trial conversion from 8.5% to ~25% (3x more profitable) over 5 months of A/B testing: research competitors → design with 99designs → prime with onboarding → A/B test everything in Superwall → recover abandoners with a drip funnel.
The five steps
- Market research — use paywallscreens.com and Sensor Tower to see top apps’ paywalls and their revenue, filtered by your niche. Copy what the $1M–$10M/mo apps do (e.g. Welltech’s Muscle Booster).
- Design — run a 99designs contest ($600 single screen, ~91 designs); reference competitor paywalls in the brief. Pull the winner into Superwall to build variations.
- Position / prime — the conversion starts at the ad, not the paywall. Don’t show the paywall on download; make users spend 5–10 min in onboarding first (sunk cost + walking them through their own problem). Just Fit ($2M/mo): body-data questions → social proof → paywall.
- A/B test everything in Superwall (remote paywall changes, no app update). Test price first (weekly/monthly/yearly/lifetime — optimize for highest LTV), then header wording, then button text. One tip changed a button word and lifted conversion 7% overnight. Bayesian analysis picks winners.
- Drip funnel — for the ~70% who don’t convert, send a push offering 30/50/70% off → discounted paywall to recover lost value.
Design best practices
- Clarity over complexity — one headline, one benefit (“track how much you smoke”).
- Highlight the value prop, add social proof / trust indicators (5-star reviews on the paywall itself).
- Always charge more than feels comfortable.
Tools
paywallscreens.com, Sensor Tower, 99designs, Superwall, RevenueCat.
Related
- mobile-app-monetization · app-onboarding-that-prints — onboarding primes the paywall
- studied-100-paywalls — the RevenueCat data behind these tactics
- steven-cravotta · paid-ads-scaling