Product-releases
July 7, 2022
December 7, 2022
5 min read
This is the 6th issue of the paywall newsletter containing dark patterns, smart design, a personalization example and more.
Artem Smirnov, Head of Marketing at Union Apps, a mobile non-gaming app publisher dedicated to converting subscription-based apps into full-scale profitable business.
General impression
The paywall has all the essentials. It seems like you’re choosing between a 7-day free trial and a 1-month paid subscription, when in fact, both of the options are annual. The difference is that the Free one gives you a 7-day trial first, and the 1-month variant offers a lower price for the first month, but in the end you’ll have to pay annually for any of them. Though, if you linger a little longer on the paywall, you’ll see a special offer with a 14-day trial.
These guys are in the top-100 grossing Health & Fitness apps in the US. I wonder how they passed the Apple review with such a paywall. Anyway, they’re masters of dark patterns, so I’d recommend checking on their future paywalls for sure.
Rise: Energy and Sleep Tracker
The look of this paywall is a 2022 trend. Getting notified about the trial ending on the 5th day seems pretty tempting, but in reality, not all apps keep this promise. The first glance impression is that I don’t understand right away how much I’ll have to pay, but I’m ready to take the trial. Placing the price higher above the CTA button is a nice dark pattern.
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A video paywall with good color contrast, where the video explains how the app works. There’s a red “Continue” button with an emoji, which really makes you want to tap it. The design is smart: the button grabs your attention first, then you notice the video, the title text, the price, and the grey text above it in the end.
Heartify
It’s clearly a hard paywall with a blinking “Continue” button. It’s pretty obvious the developer promotes the 3-month and 1-year subscriptions, by highlighting them with the “Popular” and “Best Value” tags. There’s also an interesting “Special Deal” option, which hides a 6-month promo offer behind a 3-month subscription. The picture above has been thoroughly chosen: the same assets are used for the user acquisition creatives. It shows that using the same assets for creatives and paywalls is a great idea.
Muscle Booster
This paywall looks rather weak:
If we proceed to the next screen, we’ll see a hard paywall with 2 subscription options. The annual one says “2 months free”, when in fact, there’s no 2-month trial, it’s just their way to show the benefit the user gets from paying for the whole year – a nice dark pattern.
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Further reading
Product-releases
July 7, 2022
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