Adding a 30%-off web option next to IAP: paid conversion 6.3% to 5.9%
Test run byRevenueCatTesting and CRO tool
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding a web subscription at 30% off the annual price next to in-app purchase lowered conversion to paying from 6.3% to 5.9% on Dipsea's paywall.
RevenueCat ran the test on Dipsea, the audio stories app it owns, and published it on the RevenueCat blog.
Trial-to-paid rose, but not enough to make up for fewer trial starts.
- Conversion to paying: 6.3% to 5.9% (198 vs 187 paid customers). A small loss.
- Initial conversion: 27.0% to 23.5%. The second option meant fewer trial or subscription starts.
- Trial-to-paid: 25.0% to 28.2%, the best of all variants.
- Proceeds per user: about $2.09 vs $1.94 at a 30% store fee, so the discount ate the fee savings.
The change
A second button offers a 30%-off annual plan on the web next to in-app purchase.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A clone of Dipsea's native paywall with Apple in-app purchase only: $69.99 annual, $25.99 quarterly and $12.99 monthly.
Variant
The paywall offered both an in-app purchase with a 7-day free trial and a web annual plan at $47.99, a 30% discount, behind a "save 30% on web" button.
Why it likely lost
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Two buttons make for a harder choice, and some users who tapped the web option dropped off in the browser.
- The 30% discount may have drawn users who meant to pay, which fits the higher trial-to-paid.
- Matching the store fee with a discount leaves no margin gain on web purchases, so any lost conversions cost money.
Caveats: About 3,100 new US iOS users per variant over about three weeks, in one app; the gap in paid customers is small (187 vs 198). RevenueCat sells the web billing product tested.
Who ran it
RevenueCat ran this test for Dipsea. Source: RevenueCat blog. The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
How to run this test on your app
- Hypothesis
- If we add a discounted web subscription next to in-app purchase, then proceeds per user will rise, because some users will choose the cheaper web plan and we keep more of each sale.
- Primary metric
- Net proceeds per new user after store and payment fees
- Guardrails
- Initial conversion rate
- Conversion to paying
- Renewal rate by purchase channel
- Who should test it
- US apps that must keep in-app purchase but can link to web checkout, and pay the full 30% fee. Try smaller discounts too; a 30% discount gives back all the fee savings.
Questions
Does offering both options beat in-app purchase alone?
Not here. It landed between IAP-only and web-only on paid conversion and earned slightly less per user.
How big should a web discount be?
This test used 30%, which cancels out the store fee savings.
RevenueCat suggests testing smaller or no discounts to see if the trade-off improves.