Here’s the full lineup for App Growth Annual 2025

App Growth Annual returns on October 14, 2025, at The Glasshouse, New York City (with a global virtual audience), and the lineup is stacked.

This year’s lineup spans headline keynotes, tactical talks, indie founder stories, and more than 20 workshops led by practitioners who’ve scaled top apps. Expect actionable tactics on paywalls, pricing, user acquisition, retention, and growth — plus the chance to connect with peers building the next generation of subscription businesses.

And there’s plenty more beyond the sessions, and even beyond the day itself. App Growth Annual also brings back the Shippies × Shipaton Awards, the World Paywall Speed-Building Championship finals, and the launch of New York App Week: a citywide run of meetups, dinners, and micro-events. If you’re planning to be there in person, think of it as a whole week of good times.

Apply for in-person tickets (spaces limited) | Register for virtual (free)

Highlights beyond the stage

Let’s start here, because App Growth Annual isn’t just about talks and workshops. This year, we’re bringing back — and leveling up — the other events that make it such a unique gathering.

The Shippies × Shipaton Awards

The Shippies are back — our awards for the most impactful subscription apps. Last year we celebrated winners like Inkitt, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Pump, Lose It!, Zumba, HER, and Shotsy.

For 2025 we’re going bigger:

• Winners announced live on stage in New York, October 14
• Every winning app featured on a Times Square billboard
• Spotlights across RevenueCat’s channels

And this year’s award show will be hosted by Hannah Parvaz! Founder of Aperture, multi-award-winning marketer, coach and mentor, and 2019 App Marketer of the Year.

Award categories include best onboarding, best paywall, best churn reduction, best monetization, best new app, and best solo indie app. Apply by September 15.

New York App Week (Oct 13–16)

For four days, New York City becomes the hub for app growth. Alongside App Growth Annual you’ll find meetups, dinners, parties, and micro-events — each tight, useful, and designed to give builders one tangible takeaway.

Highlights already confirmed include an early morning run with fellow app builders and a dinner connecting app sellers and buyers (hosted by Evelin Herrera). More events will be announced soon.

Want to host or co-host? We’ll fund selected events with micro-grants and promote them to our 150K+ audience and 300 in-person attendees. Pitch your event here.

World Paywall Speed-Building Championship 2025

Equal parts hackathon, e-sports, and WWE spectacle, the World Paywall Speed-Building Championship pits the fastest, most precise builders against each other using RevenueCat Paywalls.

• Qualifiers run online — the top five finalists get an all-expenses-paid trip to NYC
• The grand finals take place live on stage at App Growth Annual
• The winner takes home $5,000 USD, a custom title belt, and a Times Square billboard spotlight

Come for the chaos. Stay for the cash.

Keynotes

Now onto the main event! And for those joining us virtually: all of our keynotes and main stage talks will be livestreamed.

Natalia Castillejo

(Title TBA)

Natalia Castillejo, Director of Product at Duolingo, will be leading our keynote lineup. Full details of her session will be revealed soon.

Greg Stewart

Standing out in a crowded space — How Ladder became the #1 grossing fitness app in the US

In one of mobile’s most competitive markets, Ladder has done what seemed impossible: climbing to #1 on the US App Store’s top grossing fitness charts. In this keynote, CEO Greg Stewart shares a series of stories and strategies behind that growth, from product decisions that drive retention to marketing plays that cut through the noise. You’ll leave with practical lessons on differentiation, growth, and brand-building you can apply to your own app, no matter the category.

Michael Ribero

Beyond the paywall — bundling, pricing, and post-purchase upsells (Sub Club podcast live)

Traditional media seems like the last place to look for app growth insights, but Michael Ribero helped turn The Washington Post, Vogue, and The New Yorker into digital subscription powerhouses using tactics any app can steal. Join Michael and Sub Club host David Barnard for a conversation about maximizing LTV with post-purchase upsells, the bundle/unbundle/re-bundle playbook, replacing search traffic, and so much more.

Jacob Eiting

RevenueCat product keynote

I’ll wrap up the day by connecting the themes from across App Growth Annual back to RevenueCat’s mission: helping developers make more money. Expect a mix of reflections on the state of subscription apps, a look at where growth opportunities really lie, and a preview of what we’re building next. From new product reveals and live demos to behind-the-scenes context, I’ll share how we’re continuing to support developers with the tools, data, and infrastructure to build sustainable businesses.

Get a taste by checking out my closing keynote from last year’s event, which included our spicy acquisition news:

Main stage talks

Steve P. Young

Growth hack or black hat? Shedding light on questionable app growth strategies

Are you willing to break the rules to succeed? In this talk, Steve P. Young — founder of App Masters — exposes the hidden black hat strategies top apps use to climb the charts, revealing the controversial growth tactics big companies don’t want you to know. You’ll leave seeing app marketing in a whole new light.

Danielle Goryl

The risks and rewards of paywalling a previously free feature — lessons from Lose It!

What happens when a monetization experiment shows early promise but creates unexpected challenges over time? Join Danielle Goryl, VP of Growth Marketing at Lose It!, as she shares what happened when moving a key feature behind the paywall delivered positive results on iOS but longer-term issues on Android. Learn how Lose It! moved away from platform parity, experimented with new approaches to find the right solution, and addressed the ratings impact from the original decision. This candid session offers practical insights into adapting strategy across platforms and finding the balance between monetization and user experience.

Indie stage talks

Emmanuel Crouvisier

Rev-share partnerships — how to grow with creators and communities

The online world has shifted, with users turning to creators and communities for advice and buying decisions. That makes them the perfect place to share your app — but how do you do it without it feeling like an ad or “selling out”? Emmanuel Crouvisier, founder of CardPointers, will share how he’s used rev-share partnerships to build win-win relationships with creators and communities, turning them into a powerful growth channel.

Aja Beckett

From indie side project to $2M in funding — lessons from growing Shotsy

What does it take to go from tinkering on a side project to building the most-trusted health tracking app for people GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro… and then raising $2M in venture funding? In this talk, Aja Beckett shares lessons from her journey: the scrappy indie years, deciding when (and why) to raise capital, and what VCs really look for. She’ll cover the pros and cons of staying indie vs. raising, what changed once Shotsy had funding, and the unexpected lessons along the way. Perfect for indie founders wondering if they should take the leap.

Workshops

Eric Crowley

From investment to exit — tactics for raising capital and selling your app

Thinking about raising capital or preparing your app for acquisition? In this workshop, Eric Crowley — partner at GP Bullhound and head of the Consumer Subscription Software practice — shares the playbook he’s used advising companies like Runna (sold to Strava) and Flo (secured a $225M investment at a $1B+ valuation). You’ll learn how to position your business for investors and buyers, track the metrics that matter, and run financial diligence with confidence. You’ll leave ready to navigate your next fundraising round or exit.

Vahe Bagdasaryan

Roast my paywall — quick wins to boost conversions

See what’s holding your paywall back and how to fix it. In this workshop, Vahe Bagdasaryan, founder of Paywalls Design, shares the data-backed tweaks he’s learned from testing hundreds of paywalls each month for apps like Cal AI, NGL, and ReciMe. You’ll get practical insights on pricing, layout, and copy that have helped apps generate seven-figure revenue in months — and leave ready to apply them to your own paywall.

Marcus Burke

Scaling Meta without losing control — the Advantage+ survival guide

Maximize your Meta Ads campaigns with strategies from Marcus Burke, an independent consultant with 13+ years in mobile helping subscription apps like Blinkist, Cal AI, and Tandem scale. Learn how to take back control from Meta’s “black box” automation — optimizing at the placement level, refining creative production for scalable growth, and using web-to-app to break through your ceiling. You’ll leave with tactics you can put to work immediately.

Olga Berezovsky

How to test subscription prices without losing customers

Pricing experiments are among the most complex tests you can run, especially when longer-term plans delay results for months. In this workshop, Olga Berezovsky, data scientist and analyst-in-residence for over 20 fast-growing products, shares her framework for modeling revenue improvements early. You’ll learn to pinpoint acceptable drops in Install-to-Trial and Trial-to-Paid conversions, and calculate how many you can “sacrifice” to raise MRR, ARPU, or LTV — leaving you ready to run price tests with confidence.

Nathan Hudson

How to scale Meta with dozens of AI agents

AI is everywhere, but this session focuses only on what actually works. In this workshop, Nathan Hudson, App Marketer of the Year and founder of creative performance agency Perceptycs, shares how his team built dozens of AI agents to scale Meta acquisition for leading subscription apps. From creative strategy and production to campaign optimization, you’ll learn what works, what doesn’t, and leave with clear steps to harness AI agents to grow your Meta acquisition.

Thomas Petit

Signal engineering bootcamp — optimize ad spend with smarter events

Most subscription apps send the wrong signals to ad networks and waste ad spend in the process. In this workshop, Thomas Petit, independent app growth advisor with 10+ years in mobile subscriptions, shows how to design and refine the events you send to Meta, Google, and TikTok so their algorithms find higher-value users. You’ll learn which signals matter, how to filter for quality, and when to prioritize speed over accuracy — leaving with a blueprint for better ROAS.

Eli Winderbaum

The AI powered support playbook — scale support while delighting users

The customer support team of the future is AI-first and that future is here. In this workshop, Eli Winderbaum, Head of Customer Experience at Captions, shares how AI agents resolve over 70% of inbound inquiries instantly while increasing customer satisfaction. You’ll learn when to deploy AI vs. humans, how to keep AI knowledge fresh, and how support can fuel growth. Leave with strategies to deliver world-class, 24/7 support — from solo indie to fast-growing app team.

Ariel Michaeli

Live ASO teardown — secrets you’re missing (and how to fix them)

App Store Optimization can make the difference between an app that’s buried in search results and one downloaded by thousands of new users daily. Yet most developers either ignore it or rely on outdated tactics. In this live teardown, Ariel Michaeli — CEO of Appfigures — will analyze real apps to show exactly what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve. You’ll leave with blunt feedback, practical ASO tactics, and at least one “do this now” moment to boost visibility and conversions.

Daphne Tideman

How to use jobs to be done to build what users really need

The most successful apps don’t just add features, they solve the real jobs their users are trying to accomplish. In this workshop, Daphne Tideman, growth consultant and former Head of Growth at Heights (where she scaled revenue from £28K to £343K MRR in 18 months), shows you how to uncover, prioritize, and apply jobs to be done to your app’s marketing, product, and retention strategies. You’ll leave with a framework, examples, and steps to align your app with what users truly need.

Phil Carter

How to optimize pricing and packaging for your subscription app

Pricing and packaging decisions can make or break your subscription business. In this workshop, Phil Carter — growth advisor to category-leading apps like Perplexity, Gamma, Chess.com, and Imprint — shares proven tools for optimizing subscription price points, plan structures, and premium feature bundles to maximize subscriber conversion, retention, and LTV. You’ll learn how to go beyond A/B testing with techniques like Van Westendorp, Gabor-Granger, MaxDiff, and Conjoint analysis to maximize your company’s subscription revenue growth. Leave with a proven toolkit for improving monetization without sacrificing subscriber loyalty.

Ashley Black

How to launch, test, and scale Google Ads for your app

Google’s App Campaigns may be automated, but they’re far from hands-off. In this workshop, Ashley Black — former Head of App Ad Sales at Google and now founder of Candid Consulting — shares how subscription apps can strategically unlock performance on the world’s largest app network. 

Benjamin Burgess

Subscriber-ready acquisition: Event-optimized UA that balances scale and quality

Freemium unlocks massive growth potential, but it complicates everything about paid acquisition — from which events to optimize for to how you measure success. In this workshop, Benjamin Burgess, former growth lead at Life360 and AccuWeather, shares how to effectively shift paid acquisition focus from installs to revenue. You’ll leave with practical ways to balance volume with LTV and to align creative and landing pages so intent carries through, along with examples you can adapt to your own funnel.

Tammy Taw

Making more from your Android app — monetization strategies that work

Subscriptions aren’t your only path to growth. In this workshop, Tammy Taw — monetization strategist at Google Play with 20 years’ experience across brands like Disney, EA, and Google — shares how to diversify your Android app revenue through hybrid models. You’ll learn how to expand your SKU mix, introduce one-time purchases or microtransactions, and tailor offers to specific buyer cohorts.

Gab Ferree

Own the narrative — a communications playbook for subscription apps

In high-stakes moments, how you communicate can define your brand. Gab Ferree — former Head of Comms at Bumble & Slack — shares proven strategies to craft the right message at the right time. Learn how to frame pricing changes, respond to negative press or reviews, and turn product updates into stories that convert. Leave with practical tools to manage crises, build trust, and drive the narrative in your favor.

Félix Boudreau

Stop gambling — a data-driven playbook for influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is powerful but risky — one bad partnership can blow a budget. In this workshop, Félix Boudreau, Head of Growth at Pok Pok and former marketing lead at BetterSleep, shares how he built a top-grossing kids’ app by turning influencers into a reliable, ROI-positive channel. You’ll learn how to attribute performance, forecast campaign success, and apply proven techniques to make influencer marketing a predictable growth engine for your app.

Ron Schneidermann

The executive roundtable — networking and problem solving with fellow leaders at scaled apps

Join Ron Schneidermann, former CEO of AllTrails, and a small group of fellow app executives for something different: no agenda, no slides — just candid discussion and problem solving. Ron will kick things off with lessons from scaling AllTrails to millions of subscribers, then open the floor for conversation. Bring your questions on team building, product decisions, and growth challenges — and leave with fresh perspectives from peers who’ve been there too.

Ethan Garr

Perfect customer loops — retention built on core value

Nobody comes back for a second experience without a great first one. In this session, Ethan Garr — co-inventor of RoboKiller and co-host of The Breakout Growth Podcast — reframes retention around your users’ path to core value, and the loops that keep them consistently engaged. You’ll learn how to treat win-backs as signals of broken value, diagnose why users churn, and build a test-driven strategy to deliver meaningful value across the entire journey. Leave ready to move beyond “we miss you” messages and create customer loops that keep users coming back for more.

Patrick Falzon

How to scale with TV, PR, radio, and other non-digital channels

Most app teams master Meta, Google, and ASA — then stall. In this workshop, Patrick Falzon, CEO of The App Shop and former executive at The Mosaic Group, shares how to expand into non-digital channels like TV, CTV, radio, print, and PR without lighting money on fire. You’ll learn how each channel really works, how to buy and manage them, and what creative and tracking you need in place. Walk away with a practical framework for budgets, CAC ranges, and a test-to-scale playbook you can run next quarter.

Guillaume De Sá

Stealth marketing — how to scale with TikTok and Instagram UGC networks

Guillaume De Sá’s never spent a dollar on paid ads. Guillaume runs a portfolio company that includes Social Growth Engineers, Shortimize, FindMeCreators, and several single-feature mobile apps. Today, he manages more than 300 creator accounts on TikTok and Instagram, posting nearly 500 unique, human-made videos a day. In this session, he’ll share how to manage creators, design winning hooks and formats, and build an organic acquisition machine at scale — with practical lessons you can apply to your own growth strategy.

Steve Moy

Gamification beyond the checkbox — proven metagame mechanics that drive impact

Gamification can do more than streaks, badges, and points — built on the right metagame, it drives real engagement and revenue. In this session, Steven Moy, Chief Product Officer at Sweatcoin, draws on two decades in games (Rock Band, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Lightning Link Casino) and time leading revenue features at Bumble and Badoo. He’ll share how to design game loops and economies that keep users coming back, plus recent trends across PC, console, and mobile.

Bohdan Lopatiy

Roast my onboarding — live teardown with Flo

From crafting user onboarding at Flo and leading the monetization and activation team, Bohdan Lopatiy has seen what works (and what doesn’t). In this live session, he’ll critique real onboarding flows and show how to design experiences that both convert and retain. You’ll leave with practical takeaways to make your own onboarding more effective.

Gessica Bicego

Cracking web2app — choosing the right funnel for your app

Web-to-app is no longer experimental; it’s a core acquisition strategy. But with so many options — from mini landing pages to web onboarding flows — how do you know which approach is right for your app? In this workshop, Gessica Bicego, Independent Consultant (ex-Blinkist, Paired), shares the key decisions that make web-to-app funnels profitable, not just functional. You’ll see what works across different verticals, learn when to go lean vs. custom, and leave with a clear plan to build or scale your own funnel.

David Vargas

The TikTok ads playbook: AMA on creatives, offers, and scaling UA

TikTok has become one of the most powerful channels for subscription app growth, with unmatched reach, the highest engagement rates in social, and a billion users with real purchase power. But it’s also volatile: winning creatives can collapse in 24 hours, and scaling without the right testing framework quickly burns cash. In this workshop, David Vargas, UA and ASO Manager at SplitMetrics, shares lessons from managing strategies for 100+ apps — showing how creative velocity, smart offer design, and structured experiments can turn TikTok into a profitable growth engine. After a short case study, the session opens into an AMA, where David will tackle your toughest UA questions live. You’ll leave with experiments you can run right away to lower CAC, fight fatigue, and scale paid campaigns with confidence.

Peter (Woohyeok) Choi

Unlocking Japan and Korea — essential insights for breaking into the world’s 3rd and 4th largest app markets

Breaking into Japan and Korea’s app markets is challenging, but with the right approach it’s a massive opportunity. In this workshop, Peter Choi — CEO Staff at Delightroom (maker of the globally successful Alarmy app) and Product Owner of Between, the Korea- and Japan-based couple app — shares why common growth strategies often fall short in these regions. You’ll learn how to fine-tune monetization, engagement models, and onboarding flows to resonate with local users, and leave with practical strategies to grow in two of the world’s top app markets.

Don’t miss App Growth Annual 2025

We built App Growth Annual to be the day the subscription app community gets together — to learn what’s working, share what’s not, and celebrate the wins along the way. Expect practical insights, open debates, and a few surprises (including on stage).

Apply for in-person tickets | Register for virtual (free)