# Onboarding on the web before download: ~50% more trials, ~30% paid

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Onboarding (App)
- Date shared: 2025-05
- Test run by: [Teaching.com](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/teaching-com/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://www.revenuecat.com/blog/growth/teaching-com-tim-dikun-sub-club-podcast/
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/teaching-com-web-to-app-onboarding/

Teaching.com ran its onboarding on the web before users downloaded the app, and saw about 50% better conversion to trial and about 30% better conversion to paid than the same onboarding in the app. COO Tim Dikun shared the result on the Sub Club podcast, published on the RevenueCat blog.

## Result

**About +50% conversion to trial; about +30% conversion to paid**

- Conversion to trial: about 50% better on the web.
- Conversion to paid: about 30% better on the web, so the lift held past the trial.
- Both figures are approximate and given from memory in a podcast.

## Control

The onboarding flow shown inside the app after download.

## Variant

The exact same onboarding flow run on the web, before the user downloads the app.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- Teaching.com's view is that brand trust built over nearly 30 years made users comfortable signing up on the web.
- Users who finish onboarding and buy on the web have already committed before they install.
- As a kids' app, Teaching.com can't use some in-app tools, so the web may give it more room in the funnel.

## Caveats

Figures are approximate and from a podcast remark, with no sample size or duration shared. The team thinks its long-standing brand helped, so newer apps may see less.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we move our onboarding to the web before download, then more users will start trials and pay because they commit while intent from the ad is high and checkout sits outside the app.
- Primary metric: Conversion to paid per visitor
- Guardrail: App install and login rate after web purchase
- Guardrail: Refund rate
- Guardrail: Day-30 retention
- Who should test it: Apps with paid web traffic and a known, trusted brand. A new or unknown app may struggle to get users to trust a web signup.

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Credit: Teaching.com ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/teaching-com-web-to-app-onboarding/).
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.