Add A/B test variants without paywalls

You can measure the impact of your paywall by running an A/B test against an empty variant. One variant shows your paywall; the other shows nothing. Your app reads a flag from the paywall’s remote config to decide whether to render.

How it works

The setup uses two paywalls in the same placement:

Paywall A: The paywall you want to test, with show_paywall set to true in its remote config.
Paywall B: An empty paywall with show_paywall set to false in its remote config.

When getPaywall returns a paywall, your app reads the show_paywall flag. If the flag is true, the app renders the paywall. If the flag is false, the app skips rendering and the user continues without a paywall.

1. Add the show_paywall flag in remote config

You need two paywalls in the same placement: Paywall A (the one you want to test) and Paywall B (an empty paywall). Add a show_paywall field to each so your app can branch on the same key for both variants.

To add the flag to Paywall A:

Open the Paywalls section in the Adapty main menu and select Paywall A.
Switch to the Remote config tab.
In the Table view, click Add row and create a field with the name show_paywall and the value true. In the JSON view, the entry looks like:
```
{
  "show_paywall": true
}
```
Save the changes.

Repeat the same steps for Paywall B, but set show_paywall to false.

For full details on remote config, see Design paywall with remote config.

Setting show_paywall on both variants keeps the code path identical for both groups and makes the test easier to extend with more variants later.

2. Set up the A/B test

Create an A/B test on the placement and add both paywalls as variants.
Set the variant weights to split traffic between users who see the paywall and users who do not.

3. Check the flag in your app

Read show_paywall from the remote config of the paywall returned by getPaywall. If the flag is false, skip rendering and let the user continue.

do {
    let paywall = try await Adapty.getPaywall(placementId: "YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID")
    let showPaywall = paywall.remoteConfig?.dictionary?["show_paywall"] as? Bool ?? true

    if showPaywall {
        // Render the paywall
    }
} catch {
    // handle the error
}

Adapty.getPaywall("YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID") { result ->
    when (result) {
        is AdaptyResult.Success -> {
            val paywall = result.value
            val showPaywall = paywall.remoteConfig?.dataMap?.get("show_paywall") as? Boolean ?: true

            if (showPaywall) {
                // Render the paywall
            }
        }
        is AdaptyResult.Error -> {
            // handle the error
        }
    }
}

try {
  const paywall = await adapty.getPaywall({ placementId: "YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID" });
  const showPaywall = paywall.remoteConfig?.data?.["show_paywall"] ?? true;

  if (showPaywall) {
    // Render the paywall
  }
} catch (error) {
  // handle the error
}

try {
  final paywall = await Adapty().getPaywall(id: "YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID");
  final bool showPaywall = paywall.remoteConfig?.dictionary?['show_paywall'] as bool? ?? true;

  if (showPaywall) {
    // Render the paywall
  }
} on AdaptyError catch (adaptyError) {
  // handle the error
}

Adapty.GetPaywall("YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID", (paywall, error) => {
    if (error != null) {
        // handle the error
        return;
    }

    var showPaywall = paywall.RemoteConfig?.Dictionary?["show_paywall"] as bool? ?? true;

    if (showPaywall) {
        // Render the paywall
    }
});

Adapty.getPaywall(
    placementId = "YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID"
).onSuccess { paywall ->
    val showPaywall = paywall.remoteConfig?.dataMap?.get("show_paywall") as? Boolean ?: true

    if (showPaywall) {
        // Render the paywall
    }
}.onError { error ->
    // handle the error
}

import { adapty } from '@adapty/capacitor';

try {
  const paywall = await adapty.getPaywall({ placementId: 'YOUR_PLACEMENT_ID' });
  const showPaywall = paywall.remoteConfig?.data?.['show_paywall'] ?? true;

  if (showPaywall) {
    // Render the paywall
  }
} catch (error) {
  // handle the error
}

The fallback value true keeps the paywall visible when the flag is missing, so existing paywalls without the flag are unaffected.

If you render the paywall yourself (without the paywall builder), call logShowPaywall when you display Paywall A. Without it, Adapty cannot count paywall views in the test. Do not log a view for Paywall B, since it is never shown.

Next steps

Create, run, and stop an A/B test — Set up the test that includes both variants
A/B test results and metrics — Compare the no-paywall variant against your paywall