Opal's free tier: pay share 20% to 9%, DAU past one million
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsOpal, a screen time and focus app, replaced its hard paywall with a free tier, and pay penetration fell from 20% to 9% while daily active users passed one million.
Opal ran the change, and CEO Kenneth Schlenker described it on the Sub Club podcast, written up on the RevenueCat blog.
Opal sees it as a long-term win, though fewer users pay.
- Pay penetration (share of monthly active users on a paid plan): 20% to 9%. That is a drop in the share who pay.
- Daily active users: passed one million.
- High school and college students now make up two-thirds of DAU.
- Students referred the app to their schools, which led to Opal for Schools, a contracted B2B line.
- Revenue and LTV figures were not shared.
The change
Everything locked vs a free tier of three scheduled blocks
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A hard paywall: the app's blocking features were only for paying users.
Variant
A free tier with three scheduled blocks (rules that block distracting apps at set times). Opal settled on three after trying limits from one block up to several.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Three blocks were enough for free users to use the app properly and recommend it, while power users still hit the limit.
- Students, who were unlikely to pay, became a word-of-mouth channel the hard paywall had shut out.
- Opal tuned the limit by tracking LTV of installs and overall retention together, not paid conversion alone.
Caveats: Not a split test: this is a before/after model change. Opal calls it a win based on growth and new channels, even though the paying share fell.
Who ran it
Opal ran this test. Source: RevenueCat blog (Sub Club podcast write-up). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
How to run this test on your app
- Hypothesis
- If we give free users enough of the core feature to build a habit, then installs' LTV and overall retention will both rise because free users recommend the app and committed users still need more.
- Primary metric
- LTV per install alongside overall retention
- Guardrails
- Pay penetration
- Paid conversion of power users
- Revenue per DAU
- Who should test it
- Apps with a core feature that can be metered (blocks, projects, items) and a large group that spreads by word of mouth, like students. Apps that rely on paid acquisition and need fast cash may not survive the drop in paying share.
Questions
How do you know if a free tier is generous enough?
Opal's test is whether a non-paying user would recommend the app.
In practice they watched LTV of installs and overall retention, and looked for the limit where both improved.
Is a falling paid share a bad sign?
Not always. Opal's share of payers dropped by more than half, but the user base and new revenue channels grew.
Judge it on total LTV and retention, not penetration alone.
How should we pick the free limit?
Try a range, as Opal did from one block upward, and measure each step.
Stop where free users get real use but heavy users still hit the cap.