Pay-what-you-want discount slider

TL;DR

• Shown to existing free users (e.g. “A free gift for you”), not as the first paywall.
• Slider: far left = the default onboarding offer (e.g. 7-day trial plan), far right = 50% off (e.g. $29.99/yr).
• Letting users choose beats showing the 50% offer alone.
• One small client: ~10% of total sales, close to $1,000/month, mostly from this screen after onboarding.
• Expect drift: early on revenue split evenly between middle and end; later almost everyone picks the lowest price.

Details

Steve “loves discounting” because most people say no to the first offer; his preferred format lets them slide into the 50% offer rather than presenting it outright.¹² In one of his apps the slider sits behind a “free gift for you” entry point; the left end is the 7-day default offer from onboarding.²

Results at one client: most revenue still comes from the onboarding paywall, but the pay-what-you-want screen contributes 10% of sales ($1k/month for a relatively small app).³ When first launched, revenue split evenly between the middle and the lowest option; by the time of recording nearly everyone chose the lowest price.¹³

Stacks well with a reverse trial: “Pay what you want and unlock your discount” at the end of the free Pro week.³

Disagreements / caveats

• If everyone ends up at the floor, it’s effectively a 50% discount with extra steps — compare against a fixed-discount control on revenue, not conversion.
• Apple requires offer codes / promotional offers or separate products for each price point; implementation is non-trivial.

See also

• What to show when users close the paywall (exit offers)
• Reverse trials — converting users who closed the paywall

Footnotes

1. 56% More Trials With This One Change @ 07:09 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩²

2. App Monetization Tactics No One Is Talking About @ 10:55 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩²

3. App Monetization Tactics No One Is Talking About @ 12:27 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩² ↩³