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Showing two paywalls in onboarding (and the 8-paywall-views rule)

A no-trial paywall early plus a trial paywall later in onboarding lifted start rate from ~3% to 7.7% and monthly sales ~3x; paywall views keep paying off until roughly 8 views.

Updated 2026-10-23·2 sources·monetizationpaywallonboardingfree-trialexperiment

Showing two paywalls in onboarding

TL;DR

  • More paywall views = more money; benchmark from Jake at Superwall (via Steve): diminishing returns start around 8 paywall views.
  • Pattern tested in a teammate’s app: paywall #1 right after language choice — no trial, soft, X delayed 3 s; paywall #2 after the three-screen trial explainer — 3-day trial on weekly, with social proof.
  • Start rate went 3% (May) → 4.4% (June) → 7.7% (July); trial-to-paid held steady; monthly sales ~$1k → ~$3k with fewer downloads.
  • Why: some users are ready to pay now, others need a trial — serve both.

Details

Setup (app by Aman, on Steve’s team):12

  1. Choose language.
  2. Paywall 1 — no trial, soft paywall with the close X delayed 3 seconds; weekly plan slightly cheaper than on paywall 2, yearly the same.
  3. Rest of onboarding.
  4. The three reminder/explainer screens (The three-screen pre-paywall sequence (explain the free trial)).
  5. Paywall 2 — standard paywall with a 3-day trial on the weekly plan, plus social proof (which Steve has seen beat no social proof).

For this app weekly outperforms yearly, so the trial sits on weekly; some users simply take the cheap-enough yearly, others try a week and churn after a few cycles.3

Results: before (single trial paywall) start rate ~3%; June 4.4%; July 7.7%. The start rate counts trial and non-trial purchases; trial-to-paid barely changed.34 Both paywalls produce revenue; the trial plan pulled ahead in July. Sales rose from ~$1,000 in May to almost $3,000 in July while downloads were lower than in April/May.5

Psychology: a Medium post on “free trial toggles” (shared by John in the App Founders community) argues both user types coexist; two paywalls give each its path.6

The 8-views rule: Jake from Superwall told Steve on his podcast that paywall views keep adding revenue until about eight views, after which returns diminish.67 Practical takeaway: show the paywall more than once (onboarding twice, locked features, home screen), and maximise paywall-view rate (Paywall before sign-up (account creation after purchase)).

Disagreements / caveats

  • One small app, month-over-month comparison (not a split test); seasonality and a dev bug in tracking (mentioned by Steve) muddy the data.
  • The 8-view number is an anecdotal benchmark from a paywall-tool vendor.

See also

Footnotes

  1. What Happens When You Show 2 Paywalls? (Result) @ 01:00 — Steve P. Young ↩

  2. What Happens When You Show 2 Paywalls? (Result) @ 05:42 — Steve P. Young ↩

  3. What Happens When You Show 2 Paywalls? (Result) @ 01:52 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩2

  4. What Happens When You Show 2 Paywalls? (Result) @ 02:58 — Steve P. Young ↩

  5. What Happens When You Show 2 Paywalls? (Result) @ 04:07 — Steve P. Young ↩

  6. What Happens When You Show 2 Paywalls? (Result) @ 05:42 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩2

  7. We’ve Tested 100s of Paywalls. Here’s What Actually Converts. @ 14:24 — Steve P. Young ↩