Win-back trial offer for churned users: +240% trial starts
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsShowing churned users a personal paywall with an extra 7-day free trial lifted trial starts by over 240% and nearly doubled proceeds per user.
Unscripted, a photography poses and business app, ran this win-back experiment.
It was published as a Superwall case study.
- Trial start rate: up over 240% for the churned-user cohort.
- Trial conversion rate: up over 30%, so the extra trials were not just low-quality sign-ups.
- Proceeds per user: nearly doubled for the reactivated cohort.
- New users kept the standard paywall, so these numbers apply only to churned users who were still active in the app.
The change
Churned users get a named, personal paywall with an extra 7-day trial and a renewal timeline.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Returning users who had cancelled saw the standard paywall. The source does not describe it in detail.
Variant
Active users who had unsubscribed saw a paywall that used their name, offered an extra 7-day free trial, laid out the renewal timeline and showed several plans.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Users who keep opening the app after cancelling still see value. A fresh trial removes the cost of trying again.
- Using their name makes the offer feel aimed at them rather than generic.
- A clear renewal timeline may lower the fear of being charged by surprise, which matters for people who cancelled before.
- Several changes shipped together (targeting, personal copy, trial, timeline), so the lift can't be tied to any one of them.
Caveats: The variant bundled targeting, personal copy, an extra trial and a renewal timeline, and the control is not described precisely. Sample size and duration were not shared, and the case study was published by Superwall, which sells the paywall testing tool used.
Who ran it
Unscripted ran this test. Source: Superwall case study. 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 churned but still-active users a personal paywall with a fresh free trial and a clear renewal timeline, then more of them will resubscribe because the offer lowers the risk of coming back.
- Primary metric
- Trial start rate among churned active users
- Guardrails
- Trial-to-paid conversion
- Proceeds per user
- Repeat churn after the trial
- Who should test it
- Apps with a free tier or lapsed users who still open the app. It won't help much if churned users stop opening the app, since they never see the paywall.
Questions
Should churned users get a free trial again?
In this test it paid off: trial-to-paid and proceeds per user rose too.
Watch for users who cycle through trials without paying.
How do I target only churned users?
You need an audience rule for people who had a subscription, cancelled and are still active in the app.
Unscripted kept new users on the standard paywall.