Two pricing strategies for mobile apps | Starter Story

In the mobile app world, a "hard paywall" can be the difference between a struggling business and a thriving one. One developer saw his conversion rate jump from near zero to over 20% simply by forcing users to commit to a free trial before they could access any features. This counterintuitive strategy—making people pay before they can even try the product—turned his app into a profitable business overnight.

Why ads fail for some apps and succeed for others

The choice between monetizing through ads or in-app purchases depends entirely on how users interact with your app. For games like Wordle or Grid, where users spend long sessions playing, ads work well because there are natural breaks in the experience where an ad can appear without ruining the flow. The developer notes that in his first games, "people were on the app all the time. They were playing the game a lot, so the ads worked well."