Removing the free trial

TL;DR

• Natal (women’s pre/postnatal fitness, $25/month) removed the trial from its monthly plan: monthly subs +2,000%, quarterly +46%, annual +21%; kept permanently.
• Claim (settlement-claims app) went fully paid after its trial paywall hit 34% trial start and 50–55% trial-to-paid — revenue was higher without a trial.
• Prerequisites (Vahe Bagdasarian): high install volume, strong trial-start rate, strong trial-to-paid (>30%, ideally ~50%), and a pressing, high-motivation problem.
• No-trial only works if trust is built before the paywall — the onboarding (and content, ads, store page) must do the selling.
• Counter-cases: Ladder gives 7 days free with no card and lets the product sell; Skylight sells without any trial and a trial test added nothing.
• Middle ground: offer both — trial and no-trial on the same paywall (Free-trial toggle — let users choose trial vs pay now (and price them differently)).

Details

Natal. Nancy Anderson heard Zumba describe removing the free trial from the monthly option on Sub Club and tried it, expecting it to fail. Monthly subscriptions rose ~2,000%, quarterly ~46%, annual ~21%; it became the permanent offer.¹ Her explanation: users arriving from her founder-led content already trust the brand and don’t need a trial. Supporting numbers she cites: 93% of web-checkout visitors download the app; trial conversion ~68% vs a ~38% industry average she quotes; download-to-trial ~17% vs ~6% health & fitness average — at $25/month.²³

Claim. Vahe’s team’s multi-step trial paywall reached 34% trial start and 50–55% trial-to-paid; since trials converted so well they removed the trial and optimised for direct purchase, which earned more.⁴⁵ His checklist: lots of installs (otherwise you can’t make money paid-only), strong trial start, strong trial-to-paid, and a very pressing problem — Claim users may recover settlement money worth more than the annual price.⁶

The three meanings of “hard paywall”. David Barnard frames “no free trial” as the third kind of hard paywall (after no free tier and no X). If you remove the trial, your onboarding must do the selling and users must trust they’ll get what they pay for.⁷

Counter-case: Ladder. Greg Stewart (Ladder) runs a 7-day free trial in-app without asking for a card, letting one or two workouts do the selling; he’d split effort ~90% product activation vs 10% deals. David calls this a reverse trial — and warns it exposes a bad product rather than saving it.⁸

Counter-case: Skylight. Skylight’s subscription (attached to a $300+ device) has never had a free trial: most buyers decide to subscribe up front (“give me the whole bundle”). A test of a trial with and without a card produced no lift — trial takers were roughly the people who’d have subscribed anyway.⁹¹⁰

When a trial still makes sense. Ravi Mehta: a limited paid trial works if you can build a habit loop within ~7 days (Wispr Flow converted him that way); some products need upfront financial commitment instead — you’d never give a gym a 7-day free trial.¹¹¹²¹³ BoldVoice keeps a 7-day trial because people need to experience it before committing (Free tier or not? Freemium vs charging from day one).

Disagreements / caveats

• Natal’s lift is a pre/post comparison from a founder with an unusually trusting audience; Claim’s figures come from the agency that ran the work.
• Steve P. Young’s sources say most apps convert better with a trial (Weekly vs monthly vs yearly plans — and which plan gets the trial); these cases are high-trust or high-intent exceptions.
• Watch refunds and chargebacks when going paid-up-front (Judge paywall tests on net revenue after refunds (matured cohorts)).

See also

• Free-trial toggle — let users choose trial vs pay now (and price them differently) — let users pick trial vs no trial
• Paid intro offers ($1.99 first month that renews yearly) — a cheap paid first period as an alternative
• Nancy Anderson, Vahe Bagdasarian

Footnotes

1. How Removing the Free Trial Grew Monthly Subs 2000% – Nancy Anderson, Natal @ 1:01:55 — Nancy Anderson ↩

2. How Removing the Free Trial Grew Monthly Subs 2000% – Nancy Anderson, Natal @ 22:16 — Nancy Anderson ↩

3. How Removing the Free Trial Grew Monthly Subs 2000% – Nancy Anderson, Natal @ 25:39 — Nancy Anderson ↩

4. Our No-Code Apps Made $50M Using THIS Paywall @ 15:21 — Vahe Bagdasarian ↩

5. Our No-Code Apps Made $50M Using THIS Paywall @ 16:28 — Vahe Bagdasarian ↩

6. Our No-Code Apps Made $50M Using THIS Paywall @ 18:00 — Vahe Bagdasarian ↩

7. The case for (and against) hard paywalls @ 08:53 — David Barnard ↩

8. The case for (and against) hard paywalls @ 08:06 — Greg Stewart, David Barnard ↩

9. How Skylight Doubled Subscription Prices to $79 – Michael Segal & Mark Ungerer @ 45:38 — Mark Ungerer ↩

10. How Skylight Doubled Subscription Prices to $79 – Michael Segal & Mark Ungerer @ 56:59 — Mark Ungerer ↩

11. How Tinder Captures More Value With Tiered Pricing and Consumables — Ravi Mehta @ 19:40 — Ravi Mehta ↩

12. How Tinder Captures More Value With Tiered Pricing and Consumables — Ravi Mehta @ 20:48 — Ravi Mehta ↩

13. How Tinder Captures More Value With Tiered Pricing and Consumables — Ravi Mehta @ 23:31 — Ravi Mehta ↩