10 price test ideas for your subscription app 

Why price test?

Every developer wants to know which price points, subscription durations, or trial offers will yield the most revenue. Testing enables you to determine the right approach by measuring the impact on revenue and other metrics of changing various pricing elements within a controlled setting. 

A/B testing is the most effective method of price testing for mobile apps. In this method, users are bucketed into two (or more) segments, each of which is offered a different price to determine which offers yield the most positive results. 

What price tests should you run for your mobile app?

Price testing isn’t just limited to subscription price; you can also test the impact of changing product durations, trial and offer types, and more. Here are some popular and impactful tests you can run:

1. Subscription duration: Discover if offering your subscription for a shorter or longer duration (weekly, monthly, or annually) drives better adoption and lifetime revenue. 
2. Duration mix: Most apps offer multiple durations, not just one. See how offering a different mix of durations impacts the choices your buyers make. Purchase decisions and price sensitivity are often influenced by comparison to other available options, so you can maximize revenue for your app and value for your customers with a set of subscription offerings that encourages users to purchase the one offering the most value. For example, if your annual subscription is $15, offering a $5 monthly subscription could encourage users to opt for the annual subscription given its relative value. 
3. Packaging/bundling mix: Like duration mix, exploring how best to bundle and tier your feature offerings (like basic, premium, and pro) can influence trade-up. 
4. Trial duration: Explore the impact of changing trial duration on immediate conversion, churn, and lifetime value to understand whether more time spent exploring your product is persuasive and more sticky in the long run. 
5. Trial presence: Does offering a trial make a difference, or are you giving away usage for free without it moving the needle for your bottom line? 
6. Regular product price: Should you charge $4.99 or $7.99? This test is a classic for a reason. Don’t leave money or users on the table by charging too little or too much.
7. Introductory offer type: Do your users value a 7-day risk-free trial, or would they prefer a discounted introductory period?
8. Upgrade offer price: Determine what best incentivizes a user to upgrade a subscription plan. 
9. Winback offers: See what price point or promotion helps regain recently churned customers.
10. Pricing localization: Ideal price point, promotional, or duration settings may vary by geographic location. Consider testing pricing elements by region to discover what yields the best results in each. 

If you need inspiration on which exact price points, durations, and offers to test, look no further than your competition and customers. Assess what direct and even indirect competitors offer for pricing and promotions. You can also tap into formal or informal customer research to get ideas for what you should prioritize testing. 

Price testing challenges for mobile apps

Considering the full-funnel impact of your test results over time. It’s important to understand how changing one element of your pricing strategy impacts metrics beyond the immediate target. While offering a weekly subscription might result in a short-term boost in initial conversions, it might also lead to a lower lifetime value per customer when maximizing LTV should be your ultimate goal. Be sure to observe the trickle-down effects to ensure that the winning variant doesn’t have any unexpected side effects. 

Make sure you have trustworthy purchase data. Any experiment, be it in the lab or on your app, is only as good as the quality of its data. You’ll need to make sure you’re collecting reliable, normalized purchase event data, especially if you’re looking to test and compare results across different platforms. 

RevenueCat Experiments makes price testing simple and reliable 

RevenueCat provides a backend and wrapper around Apple’s StoreKit and Google Play Billing to handle the implementation and maintenance of in-app purchases. This allows RevenueCat to act as your cross-platform source of truth for customers and purchase data. RevenueCat’s Experiments product enables mobile apps to optimize pricing with easy-to-deploy A/B testing and out-of-the-box, full-funnel analytics. With remote configuration, you can ship price experiments as quickly as you can form a hypothesis, all without having to submit an app update. Experiments is just one of the ways implementing RevenueCat makes building, analyzing, and growing your app easier. 

Learn more about the testing methodology and principles behind Experiments in this blog post from Senior Product Manager at RevenueCat, Dan Pannasch.