Discount badge and weekly-equivalent price: +50% conversion
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsAdding a discount percentage and a weekly-equivalent price to the yearly plan lifted paywall conversion by 50% and proceeds per user by 62.5%.
Stardust, a cycle and pregnancy tracking app, ran this test, written up on the Superwall blog.
Prices stayed at $24.99 per year and $2.99 per week.
- Paywall conversion: +50%.
- Proceeds per user: +62.5%, driven by more users choosing the yearly plan.
- Yearly share: new yearly subscriptions rose 30% as a share of sales.
- Two other variants (yearly-first with a 'More Pricing' drawer, and yearly only) lost on both conversion and proceeds per user.
The change
Same prices; the yearly plan gains a discount badge and a weekly-equivalent price.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A yearly plan at $24.99 and a weekly plan at $2.99, each shown with just price and duration.
Variant
The same prices, with a discount percentage on the yearly plan and its price also shown as a weekly equivalent.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A weekly equivalent lets users compare the yearly plan directly with the $2.99 weekly plan.
- A discount badge makes the saving obvious without any math.
- Showing the saving shifts users toward the yearly plan, which is worth more per user.
Caveats: Sample size, duration and confidence were not shared, and the post was written by Superwall, which sells the paywall testing tool used.
Who ran it
Stardust ran this test. Source: Superwall 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 show a discount percentage and a weekly-equivalent price on the yearly plan, then more users will pick yearly because the saving over the weekly plan is clear.
- Primary metric
- Proceeds per user
- Guardrails
- Paywall conversion rate
- Yearly plan share
- Refund rate
- Who should test it
- Apps that sell both a short plan and a yearly plan with a real saving between them. It does little if you only sell one plan.
Questions
Should I show the yearly price as a weekly or monthly equivalent?
Match the shortest plan you sell. Stardust sold a weekly plan, so a weekly equivalent made the comparison direct.
Can a discount badge hurt?
It can if the saving looks fake or confusing.
Here the prices were real and unchanged, and the badge lifted both conversion and proceeds per user.