# In-app card form vs sending users to the pricing page: page won

- Outcome: Lost
- Page type: Checkout (SaaS)
- Elements: Checkout steps
- Date shared: 2012-08
- Test run by: [Patrick McKenzie](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/patrick-mckenzie/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/08/06/stripe-and-ab-testing-made-me-a-small-fortune/
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/patio11-bcc-in-app-card-form-vs-pricing-page/

Sending trial users to the full purchasing page when they hit a limit beat showing them a quick in-app credit card form. Patrick McKenzie ran this test on Bingo Card Creator and published it on the Kalzumeus blog in 2012. The win was weak, at about 90% significance, and no numbers were shared.

## Result

**page won**

- The purchasing page beat the in-app card form on purchases. This counts as a loss for the variant.
- The win was weak, at about 90% significance.
- No conversion rates or sample sizes were shared.

## Control

Trial users who hit a limit and chose to upgrade were sent to the purchasing page.

## Variant

Those users saw a quick in-app credit card form instead of going to the purchasing page.

## Why it likely lost (our reading)

- The purchasing page explains what users get, which the bare form likely skipped.
- The in-app form was a fast Bootstrap build, so its design may have hurt trust.
- The purchasing page offered all payment methods, which a card-only form may not have matched.

## Caveats

The in-app form was built quickly with Bootstrap, so a polished version might do better. The win was only about 90% significant, no numbers were shared, and the data is from 2012.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we show trial users a payment form inside the app when they hit their limit, then more will upgrade because they don't have to leave what they are doing.
- Primary metric: Upgrade purchases among users who hit the trial limit
- Guardrail: Payment failure rate
- Guardrail: Refund rate
- Guardrail: Plan mix or average order value
- Who should test it: SaaS products with usage-limited trials that prompt users to upgrade in the app. If your purchasing page does real selling work, a bare form may lose that, so design the in-app version with care.

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Credit: Patrick McKenzie ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/patio11-bcc-in-app-card-form-vs-pricing-page/).
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.