Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPug2RqXV-A Channel: Steven Cravotta (steven.builds)

If you’ve clicked on this video, it’s probably because you’ve got an app idea or maybe you even have an app up and running, but you’re simply not seeing the revenue numbers that you would like. Maybe you’re struggling to make your paywall actually convert, and trust me, I’ve been there, too. But after testing hundreds of different variations [music] of paywalls, I’ve cracked the code into building paywalls that don’t just show up. They convert users into paying customers consistently. In today’s video, I’m going to walk you through my exact [music] framework for building paywalls that drive revenue. These are the exact strategies that allowed me to scale my mobile app to 40,000inmonthlyrecurringrevenue.Andthebestpartis,they′reeasytoimplementwithnocodingexperiencerequired.JusttoshowyouhowimportantABtestingandoptimizing[music]youronboardingpaywallare,hereistheinitialconversionrate,akaconversionratefrominstall[music]totrialorsubscription.Hereisthatconversionrateoverthe5monthsthatweABtestedthepaywallsandonboarding.Westartedat[music]8.5initialconversionrate.Thatistrash.Andwewentallthewayuptoclosetoa25initialconversionrate.WebecamethreetimesmoreprofitablejustbyimplementingthethingsI′m[music]goingtoshowyouinthisvideo.So,besuretowatchuntiltheendofitbecauseI′mgoingtobedroppingsomuchknowledgeinthisvideo.I′veabsolutelynothingtosellyou.I′mjustgoingtoshowyouexactlyhowIbuildapppaywallsthatprintcash.Okay,boom.Hereweare.Thisblueprintwillbeinthedescriptionifyouwanttofollowthrough,butIhavebrokenthisdownintoasimplefive−stepprocessthatabsolutelyanyonecanfollow.Ifyoufollowthesefivesteps,yourpaywallwillconvertmoreinstallstofreetrials,moreinstallstosubscriptions.Eachoneofthesepointsisissupersuperimportant.So,let′skickthingsoffwithmarketresearch.Thereisonewebsitethatisanabsolutecheatcodeintermsoflookingatotherapps′paywalls,andthatispaywallscreens.com.So,youcangohereonapaywallscreens.com,andyoucanliterallyseeallofthetop−performingapps′paywalls,andtheywilltellyouhowmucheachoneoftheseappsismaking.So,forexample,wehaveYouTube′spaywall,TikTok′spaywall.Thesearen′treallyveryusefultous,buttheyalsobreakitdownintocategories,soyoucangotoutilityapps,right?Youcanalsosearch,soyoucanfindtheappsinyourniche.So,let′sgotohealthandfitness,forexample,andboom.Youcanseethepaywallsoftheseappsmaking40,000 in monthly recurring revenue. And the best part is, they're easy to implement with no coding experience required. Just to show you how important AB testing and optimizing [music] your onboarding paywall are, here is the initial conversion rate, aka conversion rate from install [music] to trial or subscription. Here is that conversion rate over the 5 months that we AB tested the paywalls and onboarding. We started at [music] 8.5% initial conversion rate. That is trash. And we went all the way up to close to a 25% [music] initial conversion rate. We became three times more profitable just by implementing the things I'm [music] going to show you in this video. So, be sure to watch until the end of it because I'm going to be dropping so much knowledge in this video. I've absolutely nothing to sell you. I'm just going to show you exactly how I build app paywalls that print cash. Okay, boom. Here we are. This blueprint will be in the description if you want to follow through, but I have broken this down into a simple five-step process that absolutely anyone can follow. If you follow these five steps, your paywall will convert more installs to free trials, more installs to subscriptions. Each one of these points is is super super important. So, let's kick things off with market research. There is one website that is an absolute cheat code in terms of looking at other apps' paywalls, and that is paywallscreens.com. So, you can go here on a paywallscreens.com, and you can literally see all of the top-performing apps' paywalls, and they will tell you how much each one of these apps is making. So, for example, we have YouTube's paywall, TikTok's paywall. These aren't really very useful to us, but they also break it down into categories, so you can go to utility apps, right? You can also search, so you can find the apps in your niche. So, let's go to health and fitness, for example, and boom. You can see the paywalls of these apps making10 million, 8million,8 million,6 million every single month. You literally have insight into what the top apps are doing, right? So, definitely check out this website, go search up your niche, and learn what the other top-performing apps are doing. A lot of these will have simpler similar-style paywalls. For example, these two are making 2millionamontheach,andtheyhaveaverysimilarstyle,right?Theyofferthreedifferentplansonyourpaywalls.So,gotopaywallscreens.comanddoalittlebitofmarketresearchandlearnsomethingfromthepeoplewhodoitbest.Andasalways,wehaveSensorToweraswell.SensorTowerisaplacewhereyoucanalsoseehowmuchtheseappsaremakingeverysinglemonth.Forexample,let′scheckoutthisMuscleBoosterapp.WelltechAppsLimitedisthename,sowecantypethatinrighthere.Boom.AndwecanseethatindeedtheirMuscleBoosterappismakingaboutamilliondollarsamonth.SensorTowersays800,000,PaywallScreensaysamilliondollarsamonth,butthispaywallabsolutelycrushes.So,takethisknowledge,dosomemarketresearch,anduseitinyourownpaywall.Okay,nowthatwe′vedonethemarketresearchandweunderstandwhatpaywallsinournichearedoingverywellbecausewelookedatPaywallScreenandSensorTower,wecanstarttodesignthepaywalls.AndthewayIgetthisdone,andifyou′reifyou′vebeenonthechannelforaminute,youknowwhatI′mgoingtosay,is99designs,right?So,howIgotmypaywallbuiltwasa99designscontest.ThiswasthewinningpaywallfromaguythatIknowverywell,namedZach,theabsolutebestdesignerintheworld.So,thisisthepaywallthathebuiltforme,andheactuallyhadacoupledifferentoptionshere,butthispaywallabsolutelycrushes.Andagain,IdidthemarketresearchonSensorTowerandonPaywallScreen,soIknewwhatwasgoingtoworkwellformyapp.I′llbreakdownkindofexactlywhatmybriefon99designslookedlike.Yeah,soherewego.Inintheinspirationalwebsites,Iliterallyputpaywallscreens.com,andIreferencedthehealthandfitnessniche,whichisaninvalidinputnow,butIliterallyreferencedthesepaywallsinmy99designscontesttokindofgivethemalittlebitofdirectiononwhatIneeded.AndthenIexplainedmyappalittlebit,andranthecontest.So,ifyouwanttobuildoneofthese99designcontestsforyourself,it′sverystraightforward.Wegotowebandappdesign,appdesign,wewillrunacontestforasinglescreen.Boom.So,ifyoustartanappcontestforasinglescreen,itwillcostyou2 million a month each, and they have a very similar style, right? They offer three different plans on your paywalls. So, go to paywallscreens.com and do a little bit of market research and learn something from the people who do it best. And as always, we have Sensor Tower as well. Sensor Tower is a place where you can also see how much these apps are making every single month. For example, let's check out this Muscle Booster app. Welltech Apps Limited is the name, so we can type that in right here. Boom. And we can see that indeed their Muscle Booster app is making about a million dollars a month. Sensor Tower says 800,000, Paywall Screen says a million dollars a month, but this paywall absolutely crushes. So, take this knowledge, do some market research, and use it in your own paywall. Okay, now that we've done the market research and we understand what paywalls in our niche are doing very well because we looked at Paywall Screen and Sensor Tower, we can start to design the paywalls. And the way I get this done, and if you're if you've been on the channel for a minute, you know what I'm going to say, is 99 designs, right? So, how I got my paywall built was a 99 designs contest. This was the winning paywall from a guy that I know very well, named Zach, the absolute best designer in the world. So, this is the paywall that he built for me, and he actually had a couple different options here, but this paywall absolutely crushes. And again, I did the market research on Sensor Tower and on Paywall Screen, so I knew what was going to work well for my app. I'll break down kind of exactly what my brief on 99 designs looked like. Yeah, so here we go. In in the inspirational websites, I literally put paywallscreens.com, and I referenced the health and fitness niche, which is an invalid input now, but I literally referenced these paywalls in my 99 designs contest to kind of give them a little bit of direction on what I needed. And then I explained my app a little bit, and ran the contest. So, if you want to build one of these 99 design contests for yourself, it's very straightforward. We go to web and app design, app design, we will run a contest for a single screen. Boom. So, if you start an app contest for a single screen, it will cost you600, which is a little bit pricey, but I promise you it is worth it because in a 99 designs contest, you will get so many different designs. Uh for example, in my contest, I got over 91 different designs from different designers, right? Um and I was able to pick the best one, which as you saw was this one, but I was able to get 99 different designs built all for the price of 600,whichisworthitinmyopinionbecausethepaywallisveryimportanttothesuccessofyourapp.Also,SuperwallisawebsitethatI′llbereferencingalotinthisvideo.Superwallisaplacewhereyoucanquicklybuildandtestpaywallswithoutshippingupdates.Andwhatthatmeansisyoucanremotelychangeyourpaywallwithoutshippinganappupdate.Itissomuchquicker,anditwillgiveyouallthetoolstoABtestyourdifferentpaywalls.So,asyoucanseehere,IhadABtestedcloseto100differentpaywallsformyapp.AndSuperwallisanabsolutelycrucialtooltousebecauseyoucanrundifferentexperimentsonyourpaywallswithinyourapp,right?Andyoucanincreasetheconversionrateovertime.So,youyoucanseeherethatI′verunallsortsofdifferentexperimentshere,whichwewillgetintoshortly.So,kindofsomedesignbestpracticesthatyouneedtokeepinmindisclarityisveryimportant,clarityovercomplexity.Onthepaywallscreen,youdon′twanttooverloadtheuser′smind.Makeitverysweetandsimple.Forexample,onthePuffCountpaywall,Ikeepitverystraightandforward.Trackhowmuchyousmoke.Ortrackhowmanypuffsyoutake,trackyourusage.Verystraightforward,veryeasytounderstand.Whatisthatoneheadline?Whatistheonebenefitthatpeoplewillgetfromusingyourapp?Thewholegoalhereindesigningyourpaywallistogetausertoconvertasquickaspossible.Youwanttohighlightthevalueproposition.Forexample,mineistrackhowmuchyousmoke,andthenyoualsowantsocialproofandtrustindicatorshere.Forexample,wehavesomefive−starreviewsfromourusersonthepaywallitself.Andnext,wewillgetintopositioningyourpaywall.Whenshouldyoushowyourpaywall?Whatisthebesttimetoshowyourpaywall?Andhowcanyouprimetheuserbeforehittingyourpaywalltoconvertalittlebitbetter,right?Andsomethingthatisveryimportanttokeepinmindwhenyouarebuildingyourpaywallandthinkingaboutyourappfromamoregeneralhighlevelistheconversionstartsfromtheverybeginning.Theconversionstartsfromtheadorthepieceofcontentthattheusersawbeforetheydownloadedyourapp.So,howgoodyouradsoryourcontentiswillkindofinfluencehowyourpaywallconverts,right?Withabetterpieceofcontent,withabetterpaidad,yourpaywallwillconvertbetter,right?Also,withanonboardingabetteronboardingexperienceinyourappwillalsomakeyourpaywallconvertbetter.Timingisabsolutelyeverythingaswellbecauseyouwantuserstospendalittlebitoftimeinyourappbeforetheyactuallyhityourpaywall.Ifsomeonedownloadsyourapp,andthenimmediatelythey′remetwithapaywallscreen,andthey′retheyhavetheyhavetochoosebetweenpayingandnotpaying,they′renotgoingtopay.They′regoingtopayatamuchlowerratethantheywouldiftheyalreadyspenttimeinyourapp.So,theonboardingisabsolutelycrucial.Here′sexactlywhatImeanbytheonboardingandprimingyouruserforthepaywall.Forexample,thisisJustFitsonboarding.IfwegohereandwesearchfortheJustFitapp,thisappismaking600, which is worth it in my opinion because the paywall is very important to the success of your app. Also, Superwall is a website that I'll be referencing a lot in this video. Superwall is a place where you can quickly build and test paywalls without shipping updates. And what that means is you can remotely change your paywall without shipping an app update. It is so much quicker, and it will give you all the tools to AB test your different paywalls. So, as you can see here, I had AB tested close to 100 different paywalls for my app. And Superwall is an absolutely crucial tool to use because you can run different experiments on your paywalls within your app, right? And you can increase the conversion rate over time. So, you you can see here that I've run all sorts of different experiments here, which we will get into shortly. So, kind of some design best practices that you need to keep in mind is clarity is very important, clarity over complexity. On the paywall screen, you don't want to overload the user's mind. Make it very sweet and simple. For example, on the Puff Count paywall, I keep it very straight and forward. Track how much you smoke. Or track how many puffs you take, track your usage. Very straightforward, very easy to understand. What is that one headline? What is the one benefit that people will get from using your app? The whole goal here in designing your paywall is to get a user to convert as quick as possible. You want to highlight the value proposition. For example, mine is track how much you smoke, and then you also want social proof and trust indicators here. For example, we have some five-star reviews from our users on the paywall itself. And next, we will get into positioning your paywall. When should you show your paywall? What is the best time to show your paywall? And how can you prime the user before hitting your paywall to convert a little bit better, right? And something that is very important to keep in mind when you are building your paywall and thinking about your app from a more general high level is the conversion starts from the very beginning. The conversion starts from the ad or the piece of content that the user saw before they downloaded your app. So, how good your ads or your content is will kind of influence how your paywall converts, right? With a better piece of content, with a better paid ad, your paywall will convert better, right? Also, with an onboarding a better onboarding experience in your app will also make your paywall convert better. Timing is absolutely everything as well because you want users to spend a little bit of time in your app before they actually hit your paywall. If someone downloads your app, and then immediately they're met with a paywall screen, and they're they have they have to choose between paying and not paying, they're not going to pay. They're going to pay at a much lower rate than they would if they already spent time in your app. So, the onboarding is absolutely crucial. Here's exactly what I mean by the onboarding and priming your user for the paywall. For example, this is Just Fits onboarding. If we go here and we search for the Just Fit app, this app is making2 million every single month. And here is their entire onboarding. They walk you through, you know, what your goal is. They They ask you to fill out some body data. They ask you to input information about yourself, and then boom, they have social proof at the end, and only after all of that do they give you the paywall? That’s absurd. Timing is absolutely crucial, and the onboarding is absolutely crucial when it comes to the success of your paywall. You want users to spend time in your app. You want to walk the users through their own problem on your onboarding, so that when they do hit the paywall, they’ve spent 5, 10 minutes in your app. There’s like that sunk cost bias. They’ve been walked through their their own problem, and they’re ready to convert once they hit your paywall. What this app also does very well is there’s this feeling of customization, right? As you’re walking through this onboarding, you’re building your own custom fitness plan. That adds a layer of customization to the app. It makes you feel like it’s yours, right? As a user. And again, you know, we have another one here. This is Fit at Home. Let’s type that one in. Fitness at Home. Boom. See, all these apps are making 100,000amonth.Absolutelycrazy.Andthenwehave30DayFitnessatHome,thisappaswell.Thisappismaking100,000 a month. Absolutely crazy. And then we have 30 Day Fitness at Home, this app as well. This app is making100,000 a month, right? apps are absolutely crushing it. This is research that I did when building my apps’ paywall and onboarding, right? You need to keep this in mind and look at your apps’ paywall from a higher level, right? Right? Because there’s other things affecting it, like the ads and the onboarding and the timing, right? You want to prime the user to be ready to convert when they hit the paywall. All right, now we’re getting into the good stuff, so be sure to continue to stick around because this is the most important part of a paywall, and it is AB testing your paywall. And this is why Superwall is such an amazing tool for app developers because AB testing every single little element in your paywall is the most important part. If you change the text of a button or you change the text of the headline, right? You will be shocked at how much this will increase your conversion rate. For example, on Puff Count, I got a tip from a friend to change some wording on the the pay button on my paywall and increase my conversion rate by 7% overnight. So, this is absolutely important and Superwall is what you need to use to be AB testing everything in your paywall. So, I’m going to get into how to do that right now and what to be AB testing on your paywall. Real quick, if you’re enjoying the video, I’m hosting a free live class where I’ll be covering absolutely everything about scaling a successful mobile app. From idea validation to building the app to scaling to real recurring revenue and eventually being able to sell or exit your app business. I will be covering absolutely everything in this free live class and by the way, spots are limited. So, check out the link in the description if you want to join. I promise you’ll walk away with value. Okay, back to the video. Okay, so AB testing your paywall. This is where This is one of the rare moments where school paid off because I know we all remember learning about the scientific method in school. You need to apply the scientific method to your paywalls. You can’t change a million things and you know, you can’t change a million things at once and expect to know what change affected the paywall’s conversion rate if that makes sense. So, you can only change one thing at a time. So, breaking this down a little bit further, the most important thing that you want to test for at first is the pricing. And when you are pricing your mobile app, you always want to go higher than you think. It feels weird to charge a lot for your mobile app, I know that. Like if you it just feels weird to do so, but always charging more will increase your revenue. I promise you that. Just trust me there. So, you always want to test your pricing. For example, what you should do to test your pricing is test out weekly, monthly, yearly, and lifetime kind of options, right? You want to figure out which one of those is going to make you the most cash. So, what you can do at first is you can give the users a couple different options. This is what I did at first, right? I gave them a weekly, monthly, yearly, whatever whatever I I gave them, right? And I figured out which one gave me the highest customer LTV. That is what you want to optimize for. You want to optimize for the highest LTV or lifetime value each one of your customers. And it’s going to be different from every for every different app. It depends on kind of how users operate in your app and you know, how useful they see your app is and you know, whether they renew, right? It’s going to be different for everyone. So, you can’t look at someone else’s app and just assume that that’s what’s going to work for you. You have to AB test absolutely everything. So, use Superwall. They will actually give you a Bayesian analysis of you know, which kind of paywall converts the best and they will tell you which pricing will give you the highest LTV, right? So, you want to optimize for the for the pricing and then what you also want to do is optimize the header wording. This right here, whatever you have on the top of your paywall, this will also definitely kind of alter the conversion rate of your paywall as well. For example, this Just Fit app that is making $2 million a month, they say get your personalized plan. They have nice images here, you know, these these images in this this header wording, you know, that will definitely increase your conversion rate as well. And you want to test different things. You don’t want to just test the same things like I would test quit for real this time and track how much you smoke and a lot of other different different things, right? You want to test vastly different headers to kind of get yourself closer to the most optimized header wording possible. And then finally, you want to optimize the button text. For example, this one says continue and you want to you want to test out the different button text versions as well. You want to run these different campaigns and it will tell you which paywall is converting the highest. So, once you’ve run kind of the scientific method and you’ve AB tested absolutely everything in your paywall, header, images, you know, social proof, the button text, the the pricing itself, once you have optimized absolutely everything for conversions and the highest LTV on your paywall, you also want to optimize the onboarding. And keep in mind, I dropped an amazing onboarding video a couple months ago that will show you exactly how to build a killer app onboarding and AB test your onboarding, but this is also very important for your paywall. It will affect whether your paywall converts or not. So, with the onboarding, you want to get users to spend more time in the app so that that when they do hit your paywall, they’ve already spent time and they feel more committed to your app so they’ll be more likely to pay. And you want to optimize the app onboarding for the number of people who convert your paywall. And then also, on the paid ad side of things, if you change your paid ads, if your paid ads are bad, your paywall will convert less. If your paid ads are better, your paywall will convert better, right? So, you want to optimize that for paywall conversions as well. You can set up events in your paid ads and you want to say, “Hey, I want to optimize for people who are actually getting convert into a free trial.” That’s what I did to scale my apps. Finally, drip funnels. This is a bit more complex on the development side of things, but what you can do is offer a drip funnel campaign. And what that means is if the people don’t convert on your paywall, for example, on you know, our paywalls, we have the conversion rate was anywhere from like 20 to like 30%, right? For that 70% of people who don’t convert, that is lost value. And what you can do to make up and capture some of that lost value is you can offer a drip funnel campaign. And what this means is if a user doesn’t convert or they abandon their paywall, you send them a push notification that says, “Hey, get 30, 50, 70% off of my app, right?” And then if they click on that, you offer them a discounted paywall. This is an absolute cheat code because those 70% of users, you’re going to lose them anyway, so you might as well offer them a large discount to try to capture some of that value. That will make your app more profitable. It will allow you to run more paid ads and scale a little bit further. Boom! You are now a paywall expert. We went through all five steps of optimizing your paywall. If you stayed until the end of the video, you probably enjoyed it. I would definitely appreciate a like. And if you want to see more of me dropping value for absolutely free, please consider subscribing. It would mean the absolute world to me. Hope you enjoy. Please actually put this into practice. Don’t just watch this video and and you know, not take action on this. Please try everything that I mentioned in this video and I promise it will increase your conversion rate. If you have any questions or you want to ask me something, be sure to hit me up on Instagram. I am super active there. I will always get back to you in the DMs. Hope you enjoyed the video and peace.