#pricing

23 notes tagged “pricing”.

• Am I underpriced? Reading price from sales close rateHormozi's close-rate-to-price ladder for offers sold by a salesperson (80%+ close → 3–4x underpriced, 30–40% → priced right, <30% → fix avatar/sales motion first) and why matching a cheaper competitor cost him ~$50M.
• Dark patterns in web quiz funnels — where the line is and why it's closingThe "black-hat" end of web2app — $1 plans followed by pre-checked add-ons that charged ~$350–400, per-day prices hiding the full price, refund walls — why regulators and payment providers are clamping down, and practical guardrails for honest funnels.
• Free tier or not? Freemium vs charging from day oneWhether to offer a free tier at all — RevenueCat data shows no-free-tier apps convert 10.7% vs 2.1% by day 35 with equal retention, but a free tier pays when free users are your marketing (Opal) or your network (Tinder).
• Free-trial toggle — let users choose trial vs pay now (and price them differently)Put a "skip free trial" toggle on the paywall so users pick trial or immediate purchase — Riz charges $9.99/week with a 7-day trial or $6.99/week without; Cal AI keeps one price; on transaction-abandonment offers give a deeper discount (90% vs 80%) for buying without a trial; ~10% pick no trial.
• Gross margin targets (80%+ for services) and why small gaps are hugeHormozi's 80% minimum gross margin for service businesses, the math showing 70% vs 80% vs 90% means $233 vs $400 vs $900 profit per customer, and why low margins usually signal a commoditized offer.
• Growing an app without paid ads — Cal AI, Coconote and WeWard comparedSide-by-side numbers and choices of three apps that scaled mainly on organic channels — Coconote ($1M ARR in 4 months, no paid ads, ~50% EBITDA), Cal AI (creators, then paid after a few months, $30/yr for mindshare) and WeWard (PR only for 4 years) — and when each added paid.
• How long should the free trial be?Default to 7-day trials on yearly and 3-day on weekly; 14 days occasionally wins, and longer trials look best when offered as an exit offer rather than the default.
• How many plans to show and how to display pricesShow 2–3 plans so the main one has an anchor (removing a monthly decoy tanked sales), and break prices down per period — a per-month/per-week display lifted conversion 38%.
• International expansion — which markets, localization depth and local pricingLocalization as a growth lever in 2026 — start where you have an edge, use cheap similar-converting geos, price with a purchasing-power index (Simply's "Big Mac index" lifted ARPA), localize consistently end to end, and expect culture-specific surprises (Simply's Japan paywall; Replika's failed Japan bet).
• Paid intro offers ($1.99 first month that renews yearly)Next to the free-trial plan, offer a cheap paid first period (e.g. $1.99 for month one, then $59.99/year) — a tripwire that lifted conversion 19% → 25% and proceeds +21% in one test.
• Partner ("gym buddy") and family/bundle plans in web funnelsAsking in the quiz whether the user wants to add a partner at 15% off each got ~15% of Built With Science trial starts to take it, raising order value and retention; Simply's multi-profile, multi-app family plans are its best-retaining segment and are sold on the web.
• Pay-what-you-want discount sliderInstead of a fixed discount, let users slide between the default offer and the max discount; it converts better and drove ~10% of one app's sales, though users drift to the lowest price.
• Prepay discounts, annual plans, split payments, layaway and financingHow many customers take a prepay or annual offer (15–20% for buy-10-get-2, 30–40% with bonuses), how big the discount should be, and payment structures (half now/half in 30 days, payday-aligned splits, layaway, third-party financing at +35% sales) that pull cash forward.
• Raising subscription prices (Skylight $39 → $79)How Skylight doubled its subscription from $39 to $79/year with minimal loss of attach or retention — price tests (incl. hardware discount), choosing below the ARPU-max $99, grandfathering existing subscribers, honouring the old price on request.
• Removing the free trial (pay-up-front plans)When dropping the free trial wins — Natal's no-trial monthly grew monthly subs 2,000% (quarterly +46%, annual +21%), Claim went paid-only after 34% trial starts and 50–55% trial-to-paid — and the prerequisites, plus counter-cases (Ladder, Skylight).
• Selling expertise — workshops over courses after AIJoanna Wiebe's case (2026) that AI has gutted course economics (one training business lost 80% of revenue in a month) and that experts should sell $20k+ workshops via a live drawn diagnostic, land-and-expand, and anchoring prices high.
• Setting your first subscription priceStart higher than feels comfortable — Ravi Mehta's $20–30/month "high waterline" doubles as a PMF test — then anchor on competitors, cost-plus-perceived-value (AI apps), ROAS/payback math and the value of the user's whole problem; text-AI wrappers cluster at $30–40/year, niche custom-prompt chat apps get $20+/month.
• Tiered subscriptions plus consumables (fitting the demand curve)Tinder's model — 2–3 subscription tiers (Plus, Gold, Platinum) with à-la-carte consumables (Super Likes, Boosts) layered on top to capture both low and high willingness to pay; subscriptions act as a force multiplier for consumables, which free users rarely buy.
• Tripwire offers instead of free trials in web2appWhy web funnels replace free trials with tiny paid entry offers ($0.99–$10 intro periods or one-time boosts) that renew or upsell to full price, how to size them, and examples (Audible, Hily, Coursiv, Headway).
• Upsells and downsells in web2app checkoutHow web funnels raise revenue after (and around) the main purchase — downsell on paywall exit, one-click post-purchase upsells charged to the saved card, distinct upsell prices, upsell downsells, and in-app charges on the saved web card (US).
• Web paywall and checkout best practices for web2appChecklist for the web paywall/checkout in a web2app funnel — hard paywall without trial, ≥50% real discount with a real timer, long scroll with FAQ and social proof, per-day pricing, intro price that renews higher, Apple/Google Pay, guarantee, personalised coupon.
• Web pricing page — show annual first with a trial timeline (60/40 → 75–80% annual)Built With Science's biggest 2026 win — a web pricing page showing only the annual plan with a Blinkist-style day 1 / day 7 / day 12-reminder trial timeline moved plan mix from ~60/40 to 75–80% annual with no price change; adding more context hurt; a "pay now, 20% off" no-trial toggle lost until both options were framed positively.
• Weekly vs monthly vs yearly plans — and which plan gets the trialMonthly plans usually underperform; test weekly vs yearly per category, and put the free trial on the plan with the highest LTV — moving it from yearly to a 3-day weekly tripled sales in one app.