How subscription apps can become painkillers

Key summary: A painkiller app solves a specific, urgent problem — driving higher retention, engagement, and willingness to pay. Unlike vitamin apps (nice-to-haves) or medicine apps (avoided despite value), painkillers are indispensable to their users. Identifying a painkiller audience involves linking user behavior to willingness to pay, then optimizing for habit formation through triggers, emotional hooks, and behavioral design. Most apps can become painkillers by focusing on a niche that deeply needs their solution and designing onboarding, monetization, and product flows around that core need.

Let’s talk about painkillers, and not the kind you struggle to find when a migraine strikes. We’re talking about painkillers in the app sense of the word, as something that you need, rather than something you merely want — which we’d call a vitamin.

What app is a painkiller for you? Which app is a must-have, one you’d miss if you couldn’t use it anymore?

For me it’s Peloton, being able to have 1,000s of high quality workouts at my fingertips where I am is amazing, especially as they have both biking and running workouts.

For Asya Paloni, the Chief Product Officer at Welltory, it’s Workflowy — a note-taking app. There are hundreds of note-taking apps, and the concept seems simple enough, so how can they truly be life-changing? Yet, for Asya, Workflowy solves every problem. It transforms her endless bullet points into organized lists, helping her keep track of meeting notes and turning chaos into clarity. It’s like her brain in app form — it’s a painkiller.

For Ekaterina Gamsriegler, Head of Marketing & Growth at MyGroove (previously Head of Marketing & Product Growth at Mimo and also has a top course on Maven on app growth), it’s Earlybird, a playtime app for parents. When she had her newborn, keeping her little one entertained was a challenge. Having a go-to resource for instant, no-equipment-needed games became a lifesaver.

Imagine if someone answered with the name of your app. That would be the dream: to become such a painkiller for your customers that your app is the first one that comes to mind when they’re asked. It’s not impossible.

What makes these apps stand out? They solve a specific, urgent need. And when it comes to understanding what makes an app a true painkiller, these two are experts. At Welltory, Asya has helped scale the app to 1 million monthly active users, boasting an impressive 3-year usage retention rate in the competitive wellness space. Meanwhile, at Mimo, Ekaterina contributed to an app that has helped 35+ million users learn to code, earning a 4.9/5.0 rating with over 93,500 reviews.

Both of these apps have dominated the competition and become painkillers in their own right. That’s why there was no one better to tell us how apps can transition from being a vitamin to a painkiller. We interviewed Ekaterina and Asya during a webinar on painkillers vs vitamin apps, and we decided to dive deeper into the insights from the engaging 70-minute discussion.

So, what truly makes an app a painkiller, and how can apps evolve from being a nice-to-have to something indispensable? Let’s break it down.

What is a painkiller app?

What separates an app people can’t live without from one they merely like? A painkiller app solves a clear, pressing problem. It’s not a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have. When your app is a painkiller, your users retain longer, convert faster, and have a higher lifetime value because they truly feel they need it.

Painkiller apps have higher retention rates, better conversion from free to trial, greater engagement, and higher lifetime value.

However, not every app neatly fits into the painkiller vs. vitamin framework. Asya pointed out an interesting distinction: some apps are neither — they’re things people know they should do but actively avoid. These are the “I really should do this, but I don’t want to, and it’s not necessarily fun” apps. Let’s call these medicine apps. They’re the equivalent of a grueling 6 a.m. workout when your bed is so warm and comfy. Is the workout good for you? Yes. Will you feel better afterward? Yes. Do you feel like doing it? No.

There are more medicine apps than you might realize, as we discovered during the webinar:

• Language learning app: We want to learn languages, but something else always is a priority instead.
• Preventative physiotherapy apps: Helpful, but often skipped until pain sets in.
• Therapy apps: Tough to start and easy to put off.

It’s just like that 6 a.m. workout: yes, I should do it, but the alternatives are so much more attractive.

Why does the medicine category matter? 

Because even if you look like a painkiller, and your audience describes you as one, when push comes to shove, they’ll do anything to avoid using you. If users avoid your app, then it’s not a painkiller.

This helped me understand why I didn’t learn Spanish for my wedding. No, I’m not marrying a Spaniard, but my wedding is in northern Spain, so speaking the language conversationally would be helpful. Here’s the thing: I’m terrible at languages. 

My Spanish is muy malo. So, if you asked me if Duolingo or Jumpspeak would be a painkiller for me, I’d say yes, empáticamente! But in reality, I will do anything other than spend five minutes practicing Spanish. I have the apps, yet I don’t use them — they haven’t become a game changer for me.

If your app is stuck in the medicine category, your goal is clear: make it feel less like medicine. How? By tapping into psychology and behavior design. Welltory achieved this by mimicking Twitter’s addictive scrolling experience, recreating something people enjoy too much. Language apps, on the other hand, use gamification to keep users hooked — even involving a terrifying owl.

This raised an even bigger question: If some apps are naturally painkillers and others are medicine, is it possible for any app to become a true painkiller? Are you stuck with what your category permits? This was the top question from our webinar attendees — and one worth exploring.

Can all apps be a painkiller?

This was the burning question at our webinar, and I don’t blame anyone for asking it. Time and again, I hear versions of the following:

• Can productivity apps be painkillers?
• Can education apps be painkillers?
• My app does XYZ — can it be a painkiller?

While some apps naturally lend themselves more to one of the three categories (painkiller, vitamin, or medicine) than others, we all agreed that it’s not as black and white as it may seem.

Even successful apps like Welltory and Mimo aren’t painkillers for all their users. It’s not about whether your app is a painkiller; it’s about for whom. For Asya, a note-taking app is a painkiller, but for someone else, it’s just a fun extra they never get around to using. There’s almost always an audience that views your app as a must-have.  The key is finding that niche audience, not changing your app to fit a broad category.

Welltory had always been a painkiller for people dealing with chronic stress, burnout, and health conditions. For them, the app is indispensable, improving their quality of life every day. Folks who are in good health have been tougher to retain — the Welltory team ultimately chose to mimic addictive feeds to capture this broader, unmotivated audience. 

Mimo is a painkiller — not for professional developers (which surprised me), but for beginners learning to code in their free time, especially those who can’t afford or don’t have the flexibility for a coding bootcamp. For everyone else, it’s just a vitamin — ”maybe I’ll learn to code one day…”

The real challenge isn’t whether your app can be a painkiller — it’s whether there’s a large enough audience for it. Some categories naturally lend themselves to high retention and urgency, while others struggle to achieve the same level of need.

Which app categories naturally lend themselves to being a painkiller? 

That being said, are there certain industries where it’s harder to become a painkiller? Based on the logic that painkiller users tend to retain better, spend more, convert better, and have higher usage, I dug into the 250+ page State of Subscription App report. I analyzed several sections of the report:

1. Realized LTV per payer after year 1
2. Active renewal rates
3. Download to trial

While the stats varied slightly across the reports, Health & Fitness and Business performed strongly across all three metrics. In contrast, Travel, Gaming, and Media & Entertainment tended to be on the lower end.

The stats show significant variation across industries. To get a clearer sense of how close your app might be to having painkiller users for your specific category, I highly recommend using RevenueCat’s free app subscription benchmarking tool. It will help you assess where your app stands in terms of potential for painkiller status.

If you’re in Health & Fitness or Business, your path to becoming a painkiller is more straightforward, as your users already tend to have strong triggers. On the other hand, if you’re in Travel, Gaming, or Media, you’ll need to work harder to create urgency, habit loops, or emotional triggers that make your app feel indispensable. But before all that, let’s first identify those painkiller users.

How do you find your painkiller users?

The good news? Almost any app can become a painkiller… for a certain segment. But how do you find them? How can you tell if someone truly sees your app as a must-have?

The most important indicator is willingness to pay.

Ekaterina emphasized a key point throughout the webinar: being a painkiller isn’t enough—your users need to pay. Engagement doesn’t pay the bills. What really matters is identifying users who pay, renew, and convert at high rates—the ones who truly depend on your app. But how do you find those mythical painkiller users?

Here’s Ekaterina’s recommended three-step process:

1. Start with the core problem your app solves
2. Identify power users with qualitative research
3. Validate patterns with quantitative data

Let’s break each one down.

1. Start with the core problem your app solves

Most startups are created to solve a specific problem. In our first advisory session, I love asking founders: What problem did you set out to solve, and what makes you different from other solutions focused on that problem?

Asya shared how Welltory was born: “We built it for six Asyas” — high-achievers battling stress and burnout. The app wasn’t just about tracking health data; it was about helping people like her avoid burnout.

Now, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically your painkiller audience. It simply gives you a good idea of the potential audience, and from there, you need to test and validate this hypothesis. It’s a starting point, rather than going in blindly, but it shouldn’t be set in stone just yet. You still need to figure out if they’re your painkiller audience — or if it’s someone else. This is where Ekaterina recommends moving on to the next step.

2. Qualitative analysis with your Product-Market Fit and power users

We know the individuals we want to focus on are those willing to pay. The ideal way to identify them is by looking at actual paying users — those who have proven they’re willing to pay for your product. Once you’ve identified them, it’s time to narrow things down further.

In the past, I’ve approached this in two ways: through a product-market fit (PMF) survey or by segmenting power users.

The PMF survey is typically better for smaller user bases. You ask your paying subscribers the classic PMF question:

“How would you feel if you could no longer use [app name]?”

• Very disappointed
• Somewhat disappointed
• Not disappointed
• N/A – I no longer use [app name]

Followed by the classic follow-up question: “Could you explain your answer?”

Then, you reach out to those who answered “very disappointed.” This works best with smaller segments because power users are typically identified by:

• Retention – They stay subscribed for multiple billing cycles
• Frequency – They use your app regularly (what “regular” means depends on your app)
• Recency – They are currently active, not just past users

However, with this method, you might miss newer subscribers who also view your app as a painkiller.

So, if you have a smaller user base, a PMF survey can help you find your most loyal users. If you have a larger subscriber base, segmenting power users by their engagement and spending patterns is the way to go.

How do you identify power users? 

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Painkillers don’t necessarily require daily usage — it depends on what frequency makes sense for your app, as Asya explains. For some apps, like language learning apps, daily usage makes sense because that’s how those types of apps function. That’s how Welltory operates, as their stats are updated daily. But for other apps, like food delivery, daily use wouldn’t make sense. Most people don’t order takeout every day — at least, I hope not! For those apps, weekly or monthly usage might make more sense for qualifying someone as a regular user.

You need to determine what frequency makes sense for your app to get users into the habit of using it. If you’re unsure, segment your users based on different usage patterns and see how they impact retention and lifetime value (LTV), while staying on a reasonable segment size. For example, several times a day might convert better, but if it’s only 0.05% of your user base, it’s unlikely there’s a large enough audience who wants to use your app that frequently.

From there, I always ensure we’re filtering not just by who’s a paying user, but also by whether they haven’t canceled, and ideally, by users who have gone through multiple payment cycles. Then, I segment down to the top 5-10% of users, as this ensures you’re targeting your best customers. If your segment is too large, you can narrow it down further by increasing the minimum spend.

Gathering qualitative data from power users

Then, you can survey and/or interview these users. I recommend checking out this excellent range of Jobs to be Done questions to ask during the interviews.

Ekaterina emphasizes the importance of diving deeper into their goals and motivations. She also finds it helpful to ask users how they explain your app to their friends and family, as this gives further insight into their reasons for using it. Another great set of questions to ask include:

• When was the last time you had this problem?
• What solution did you use instead?
• What prompted you to open the app last time?

No users? No problem!

Before we move on, I’ve often been asked what to do if you don’t have enough users for data gathering. This is especially true for emerging startups. In that case, you can rely on online tools like UserInterview or tap into your own network. 

Use these pools to identify relevant users by asking questions that help you understand their pain points or whether they’ve used competitor apps.

3. Link it with existing quantitative data

If you have a large user base, it’s a good idea to ask why they made a purchase. This allows you to cross-check reasons against quantitative metrics, ensuring it’s not just a one-off case of solving their Jobs to be Done (JTBD), but that you can identify patterns. When you look at users who cited that reason, do you notice not only higher retention but also better engagement?

This is especially useful if you have multiple audiences, as it can help you prioritize which JTBD to focus on. With a larger subscriber base, you may even want to do this before conducting interviews.

If your top-paying users all cite the same problem, that’s your painkiller audience. If not, you may need to refine your positioning or create a stronger habit loop to make your app indispensable.

Now that you’ve identified your painkiller users, how can you make them even more engaged?

Becoming a stronger painkiller

Once you understand your painkiller niche — one that is large enough to grow and build upon — you can begin shaping your habit flow around it.

Both Asya and Ekaterina emphasize that understanding the triggers is crucial for this. What is the trigger that prompts users to engage with your app? Nir Eyal highlights in his Hooked model that a key component of building habits is identifying the trigger.

At first, the focus is on identifying external triggers that influence their behavior, such as notifications, emails, or specific moments in their day when the topic comes to mind. Only then should the goal shift to leveraging internal triggers — emotions like boredom, frustration, or fear — to drive behavior.

It can be challenging when there are no clear triggers — for example, what motivates or reminds you to practice coding? This is where gamification elements become essential. Mimo, for instance, effectively builds streaks and also uses leaderboards.

Another approach is to replace an existing emotional trigger. Welltory, for example, mimics TikTok’s style, leveraging boredom to make the experience as fun and engaging as scrolling through TikTok.

From there, the next challenge is monetization. Do you introduce a strict paywall upfront or adopt a freemium model? What do painkiller audiences respond to best? Asya and Ekaterina had differing perspectives on this:

Asya believes that for smaller apps, hard paywalls may be more effective because they let you quickly test different messages to figure out what users are willing to pay for right during the onboarding. Then, you can focus on delivering that value in the app and open up a freemium model to scale your business once you’ve figured out how to deliver. That’s where Welltory is now – a soft paywall that lets users opt out of paying right away and try the free version before committing. 

Ekaterina argues that freemium models are better for long-term growth, as they let users experience the product’s value before committing. This approach is particularly effective for education apps like Mimo. While it may result in lower short-term conversion rates, it fosters a good balance between user retention, direct and delayed conversion to purchase, which is in line with Mimo’s mission of making coding education accessible.

Which one is right for you? If you’re still testing product-market fit and need early validation, a hard paywall might be the better choice. If you already have strong engagement but want to improve monetization, optimizing a freemium approach could work better. It will also depend a bit on the time to value. 

Marketing is a plaster, not the cure 

One of my favorite lessons from Asya was: show, don’t tell. Simply telling people you solve their problem only gets you so far. Welltory learned this the hard way — during onboarding, explaining the benefits wasn’t converting users. What actually worked was getting them to experience the feature firsthand.

Asya saw the same issue when describing Welltory in conversations. At parties, she’d excitedly explain how it collects and analyzes data to reveal insights about your health — only to be met with polite nods and glazed-over expressions.

So, she took a different approach. Instead of explaining, she demonstrated. As her husband put it, she became an Oracle. She’d ask for someone’s phone, check their health data, and then make eerily accurate predictions — “Looks like you didn’t sleep well… maybe because you were drinking last night?” Creepy, but undeniably impressive.

Welltory applied this same principle to onboarding. Instead of overwhelming users with a list of features, they focused on getting them to share their data. I decided to try it myself, and within minutes, Welltory felt like an Oracle for me too. It knew about my insomnia, my overactivity, and even my most stressful days. It didn’t just tell me what it could do — it showed me.

Even in the App Store, the first thing you see is a video with a visualization of the data and insights you could have, showing not telling you what Welltory can do for you.

We know from the SOSA 2025 report that most trials get started on Day 0 (around 80%) so you can’t wait around to show that value.

Even if you can’t immediately show the outcome, you can still create value by illustrating the transformation users can expect. For Mimo, this means giving users a clear sense of how much they can learn and what their journey will look like. Their app visually represents this by showcasing busy professionals finding creative moments to learn to code—whether during a quick break or even in the office elevator.

The key is to get people excited about the end goal — what you help them achieve. The challenge is finding a way to demonstrate that value before they’ve experienced it firsthand.

Time to become more of a painkiller

Neither Mimo nor Welltory started out as a painkiller — it was a journey. The first step was identifying the niche where they were already solving a real pain point. From there, they doubled down, refining their messaging and improving the product to better serve that audience. Only then did they expand into new niches where they could be a painkiller.

All three of us believe any app can become a stronger painkiller — the path just depends on the product. Some can lean on emotional triggers, while others (like medical apps) need to create engagement and enjoyment around usage. The goal isn’t to be a painkiller for everyone, but to find a scalable niche that truly needs and loves your app.