# Three-tier cascading paywall offers: +8.3% ARPU

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Paywall (App)
- Elements: Discounts, Free trials, Paywall timing
- Date shared: 2026-07
- Test run by: [Superwall](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/superwall/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://x.com/vahebagdasar/status/2082119611932422478
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/cascading-paywall-offers-three-tiers/

Showing three tiers of paywall offers by view count (standard, then an extended trial, then a discount) raised ARPU by 8.3% over a two-tier setup, worth about $14.7K a month in proceeds. Nick Godwin of Superwall ran the test for an unnamed subscription app. Vahe Baghdasaryan of Tangent shared the results on X.

## Result

**+8.3% ARPU; about +$14.7K/month proceeds (about $177K/year)**

- ARPU: +8.3% versus the two-tier setup.
- Proceeds: about +$14.7K per month, or about $177K annualized.
- Exact offer terms (trial length, discount size) and conversion rates were not shared.

## Control

Cascading offers v1: one paywall for each user's first two paywall views, and a second paywall for users with two or more views.

## Variant

Cascading offers v2: the standard paywall on the first view, an extended-trial paywall on views two and three, and a discount paywall from the fourth view on.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- Users who skip the first paywall are still interested. A longer trial lowers the risk for them before any price cut.
- Saving the discount for the fourth view protects full price for people who would have paid anyway.
- Each step gives a new reason to say yes, matched to how many times the user has hesitated.

## Caveats

The app is anonymized, and the details come from a screenshot in the post. Sample size, duration and offer prices were not shared. Superwall staff ran the test and Superwall sells the paywall tool, so the result may lean positive.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we show a standard paywall first, an extended trial on the next views and a discount only after several views, then ARPU will rise because each user gets the smallest offer that gets them to convert.
- Primary metric: ARPU
- Guardrail: Share of users on discounted price
- Guardrail: Trial-to-paid
- Guardrail: Renewal rate
- Who should test it: Apps where users hit the paywall many times before paying. If most users see it once, view-count targeting won't have much to work with.

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Credit: Superwall ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/cascading-paywall-offers-three-tiers/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.