For most subscription apps, a free trial converts better than freemium.
RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026 puts the median download-to-paid rate at 10.7% for hard-paywall apps, where a trial is the usual way in, against 2.1% for freemium apps.
Freemium makes sense when free users bring something back, like word of mouth, network effects or a business deal, that pays for the lower conversion.
Below we cover the trade-off, the benchmark data, hybrid models, and the tests in our database where apps switched one way or the other, with the real results.
The trade-off between freemium and a free trial
A free trial gives a new user the full product for a set number of days, then bills them unless they cancel.
Freemium gives everyone a limited version forever and sells an upgrade.
Both lower the risk of trying the app.
They differ in when the user has to decide.
A trial forces a decision within days. Freemium lets the user put it off for good, and most do.
| Free trial | Freemium | |
|---|---|---|
| What's free | Everything, for a few days | A limited version, forever |
| When the user decides | At the end of the trial | Whenever they hit a limit, or never |
| Download-to-paid (median, D35) | 10.7% for hard-paywall apps | 2.1% |
| Revenue per install (median, D60) | $3.09 for hard-paywall apps | $0.38 |
| Main risk | Users never see enough value before the bill | The free tier is good enough, so few upgrade |
| Best fit | Apps that solve a clear problem, paid acquisition | Habit or social apps, organic growth, network effects |
Source for the medians: RevenueCat, State of Subscription Apps 2026.
The hard-paywall group includes apps that gate everything behind a trial or an immediate purchase.
The store rules allow both. Apple's subscription guide describes freemium and metered paywalls as valid models, and supports three kinds of introductory offer: a free trial, pay-as-you-go and pay-up-front.
A customer can redeem one introductory offer per subscription group.
If you're still deciding where the paywall goes, our hard vs soft paywall guide covers the placement side of the same question.
Conversion and retention data
RevenueCat's 2026 report draws on more than 115,000 apps and $16 billion in revenue.
On conversion, the gap is wide: hard-paywall apps convert downloads to paid at a median of 10.7% by day 35, about five times the 2.1% freemium median.
Revenue follows. Median revenue per install at day 14 is $2.32 for hard-paywall apps and $0.27 for freemium. By day 60 it's $3.09 against $0.38.
In a follow-up article, RevenueCat notes that even the bottom quartile of hard-paywall apps converts at 4.2%, about double the freemium median.
Retention is the surprise. The same report says that after one year, retention for both models is nearly identical.
Freemium does not buy you better long-term loyalty among payers. It mostly buys you more free users.
Trial length matters inside the trial model too.
RevenueCat found a median trial-to-paid rate of 25.5% for trials of four days or less and 42.5% for 17-32 days, yet nearly half of apps now use trials of four days or less.
Our trial conversion rate benchmarks break this down by category, platform and region, and the app retention benchmarks cover the long tail.
One caution: these are medians across very different apps.
A meditation app and a photo editor don't face the same choice, so treat the benchmarks as a starting point, not a forecast.
Hybrid models
Few apps run a pure version of either model. The most common setups mix the two.
- Freemium with a trial on the upgrade. The free tier stays, and the paywall offers a trial of the paid plan. This is how most freemium apps actually sell.
- Trial-or-pay paywall. One plan carries a trial and another doesn't, so users who are ready can pay at once. RevenueCat's report shows mixed trial strategies are the most common setup in every category.
- Paid trial. A small charge for a long first period, set up as a pay-up-front or pay-as-you-go introductory offer instead of a free one.
- Ads as the free tier. Free users see ads, payers remove them. The free tier earns something even when it never converts.
- Money-back guarantee. No trial at all, but a refund promise lowers the risk instead.
One hybrid is now off the table on iOS.
Starting in mid-January 2026, Apple began rejecting toggle paywalls that let users switch a free trial on or off, citing guideline 3.1.2, according to RevenueCat's write-up.
Plan on showing trial terms plainly instead. Our free trial tests and freemium limit tests cover the other variations.
What the tests show
Our database has apps that moved in both directions.
The results don't all point the same way, which is the most useful thing about them.
Apps that moved away from freemium
V1 Sports dropped freemium for paid plans with free trials and reported +90% revenue within 12 months.
Golf users had used the app free for years, and the switch drew negative reviews at first.
It's a before-and-after comparison, not an A/B test.
Headspace tested locking all in-app content behind the subscription and saw a significant rise in paid subscribers.
Headspace kept some content free outside the app, on YouTube and Netflix, rather than in a free tier.
Going the other way can hurt. In a case Phil Carter shared with RevenueCat, a subscription app that switched from a hard paywall to freemium saw more than 50% lower subscriber conversion, and the change was reversed within a couple of weeks.
Apps where freemium paid off
Opal replaced its hard paywall with a generous free tier, and pay penetration fell from 20% to 9% of monthly active users.
Opal still counts it as a win: students became two-thirds of daily users, drove word of mouth and led to an Opal for Schools contract line.
It's a before-and-after result, and the revenue upside isn't quantified.
Another established app kept freemium but added a multistep paywall with better onboarding messaging and pricing, and LTV per user rose 75%.
This one is bundled, so the gain can't be pinned on any single change.
Ryn VPN added a "Continue with Ads" option to the paywall and reported +158% revenue, with conversion going from 0.08% to 1.2% and ARPPU up 98% (vendor-reported by Superwall, before-and-after).
Tuning the trial itself
Stardust added a 7-day free trial to its yearly plan and saw +131% paywall conversion in a multivariate test (vendor-reported by Superwall).
For an app with no trial at all, adding one can be the biggest single change available.
But a trial isn't always better than no trial.
A new app that removed its free trial, in a case David Vargas shared, saw LTV per paying customer go from $35-40 to over $60 in one month.
It also added six price tiers at the same time, and RevenueCat notes acquisition costs likely rose.
Teaching.com tested a money-back guarantee instead of a trial: conversion was slightly lower, but revenue and LTV were higher.
And in Vahe Baghdasaryan's tests, a $1.99 paid 30-day trial raised D90 ARPU from $2.23 to $2.89 (+30%) for health and fitness apps.
The AEZAKMI Group's PDF scanner test shows how much the plan shape matters: monthly converted 1.21%, weekly 1.63% and weekly with a trial 2.29%.
The pattern: moving from freemium to a trial or hard paywall usually raised revenue.
Freemium won when the free users created value the paywall couldn't, as with Opal's students or Ryn VPN's ad viewers.
More examples sit in our paywall test archive.
Decision guide: freemium or free trial?
Start with a trial, or a hard paywall with a trial, if most of these are true:
- You buy installs with paid ads and need revenue fast to fund them.
- The app solves a specific problem users can judge within a week.
- You have little runway to absorb a conversion drop.
- You don't have the analytics to track how free users move toward paying.
Consider freemium, or test it, if most of these are true:
- Free users bring in other users through sharing, content or network effects.
- The product is a daily habit, so value builds over weeks, not days.
- You've hit a ceiling on paid acquisition and need organic growth.
- Free users can earn money another way, through ads or a B2B deal.
- You have the runway to wait through a drop in conversion, as Opal did.
These lists follow the criteria in RevenueCat's hard paywall vs freemium article, checked against the tests above.
Whichever you pick, test the change rather than flipping it for everyone.
Run it as a split test on new users if your paywall tool allows it, and judge it on revenue per install or LTV, not trial starts alone.
Several tests in our database raised trial starts while paid conversion stayed flat.
Then tune the details. Our guides to freemium apps, paywalls, paywall timing and subscription pricing cover the next set of tests to run.