I bought a lifetime of Calm.
The app, not the feeling, although I’d definitely pay a lot for actual calmness in my life.
After a few years of bouncing between Calm and Headspace, meditating off and on, I saw an offer that felt impossible to refuse: lifelong access to Calm. No monthly payments, no annual renewal, just one payment, forever.
It sounded perfect. Wouldn’t I meditate more if I knew I’d already invested? Wouldn’t it feel amazing to never have to think about my subscription again? One less thing on the mental load. So, after some deliberation, I did it. My first-ever lifetime subscription. My second one came earlier this year when I married my now-husband.
Years later, Calm is still on my phone. Still updated, still upgraded, still going strong. But that raises a bigger question: if a giant like Calm is offering lifetime subscriptions at scale… should your app?
Like with my other deep dives into subscription models (from the pros and cons of annual subscriptions to whether weekly subscriptions make sense), you’ll know it’s never as simple as yes or no“yes, do it” or “no, don’t touch it.” There are advantages and disadvantages for both your customer and your brand. And it doesn’t suit every industry.
So today, we’re diving into lifetime subscriptions. We’ll consider:
- How common lifetime offers actually are across industries
- The benefits (and risks) for both your customers and your business
- Who should consider lifetime subscriptions, and who shouldn’t
- How to structure a lifetime offer for success
While you’re probably reading this from a business perspective, I always start with the customers, too. You need to understand their perception and hesitation if you want to test lifetime subscriptions. A lifetime subscription almost always favors either the customer or the brand — rarely both. I can feel like I got an unbeatable deal with Calm, or Calm can feel like they maximized my value. But not both at the same time.
Quick note
When I refer to lifetime subscriptions here, I mean the one-time, non-consumable in-app purchase that grants ongoing access, not an actual App Store subscription.
Are many apps really offering lifetime subscriptions?
I turn to my trusty data source, my favorite nerdy nighttime read: the State of Subscription Apps 2025 Report. (Yes, all 262 pages of it, and yes, it delivers every time.)
For most app categories, offering a combination of subscription and lifetime subscription is the second most popular form of monetization. On top of that, a small share of apps also layer in consumables:
Where are lifetime subscriptions most common? Photo & Video apps lead the way, where the model is often framed less as ‘forever access’ and more as a one-off upgrade. They’re also popular in Education and Travel, where users see clear long-term value.
For most other categories, adoption hovers around 18–24% of apps offering both subscription and lifetime options, with consumables sprinkled in.
The big outlier? Business apps. Here, lifetime access makes far less sense — ongoing per-user costs are high, and products evolve too quickly. Especially in the B2B space, lifetime subscriptions rarely align with reality.
The benefits of lifetime subscriptions
So why would you consider moving from a monthly or annual subscription model to lifetime one-off? Let’s look at both sides.
From the customer side
People are tired of subscriptions. Everything from TV to toothbrushes now wants a monthly fee. It’s hard to keep track of them, and everything feels like a subscription these days. Heck, there are literally apps to track your subscription apps. If that’s not subscription fatigue, I don’t know what is.
That’s where lifetime subscriptions come in. They’re appealing:
- No more subscription creep: instead of adding one more bill to the pile, users can pay once and forget about it
- A way to take a bet: lifetime offers let people back a new app they like, even if it’s still early — many startups price lifetime deals more attractively than their annual plan to encourage this “I’m in for the ride” mindset
- The long-game win: stick with the app beyond the breakeven point, and it feels like you’ve unlocked an amazing deal
From the brand and business side
There’s several main business benefits to offering lifetime subscriptions:
- Upfront revenue
- Boosted retention
- Early cashflow
- Attracting committed users
- Referral benefits
- Stand out against competitors
Lifetime subscriptions give you at least five years’ worth of revenue upfront — sometimes more. And if a customer would have churned earlier? Even better. You’ve locked in value you might have lost down the line.
Offering it early, when your app is just getting started, can also boost retention. Those initial lifetime subscribers give you more data to refine your retention strategy, while providing an early revenue boost.
This upfront cash is particularly helpful for content-heavy brands. Think Calm: new meditations, celebrity narrators, music, partnerships — all require continuous investment. A surge of lifetime subscription revenue can fund growth, or even help bootstrapped apps expand without raising capital.
Lifetime subscriptions can also be timed strategically, such as during specific periods where people expect an offer, like holiday discounts and seasonal promotions. In my experience, discount-driven users tend to engage less and churn faster — and Airship’s research on Black Friday subscribers confirms this. But a lifetime deal lets you attract committed users while discouraging bargain hunters.
There’s also a more niche benefit: referrals. Take Origin, a finance app, which rewards lifetime access to users who refer three friends. They cleverly frame it: “Refer two friends to cover one year of Origin, refer one more friend and earn a lifetime membership.” The offer is far more compelling than a free month or year, turning referrals into a powerful growth engine.
Finally, in a competitive industry, lifetime subscriptions can be a smart way to stand out against the giants, most of whom don’t offer them (Calm being the rare exception). Take Jumpspeak, a language app trying to compete with Duolingo: in my experience, they push lifetime subscriptions heavily to differentiate themselves and attract committed users.
When I tried Jumpspeak, it wasn’t quite right for me, but I could see how someone really enjoying the app might opt for the lifetime subscription. That locks them into Jumpspeak for life (hopefully), rather than just testing it and returning to Duolingo. Compared to Calm, where the lifetime offer is roughly 5x the annual price, Jumpspeak prices it at just 3.6x annual, making it a notably aggressive strategy.
The downsides of lifetime subscriptions
Okay, now what’s the catch?
For the customer
When I bought Calm lifetime, I didn’t read the fine print as carefully as I should have (the cost was about a third of what they charge now). Some lifetime subscriptions are limited to certain features, and ‘lifetime’ usually means the lifetime of the product, aka as long as the company stays in business. That’s a gamble, especially with new apps.
If you buy a lifetime from a small startup and they fold a year later, your ‘lifetime’ ends far sooner than expected. With Calm, I didn’t worry as they were already established, but with a newer app like Jumpspeak, which I hadn’t tested extensively, I was more hesitant. Was it worth it?
Another consideration: trials are harder to offer. Since lifetime subscriptions aren’t technically subscriptions under App Store rules, you can’t provide an app trial. This might force users to pay for a few months or a year first before upgrading to lifetime, which can limit adoption.
For the brand and business
Here’s where it gets tricky. Lifetime subscriptions are often priced at 5–12x the annual subscription, designed to sit just above your expected lifetime value (LTV). But averages can be misleading, and lifetime subscriptions don’t take into account price increases.
Take me, for example: I’d already been subscribing to Calm for a few years and likely would have continued for many more. In that case, they probably earned less from me by offering lifetime access. That’s why pricing lifetime subscriptions is always a bit of a tug-of-war.
For reference, I got my Calm lifetime subscription for £119.99.
Back then, Calm was much cheaper — my faulty memory says around $29.99 per year — but now they charge $399 for a lifetime subscription (and $79.99 for an annual subscription). So they could have made significantly more from me as a recurring annual subscriber, especially after the price increase.
You can’t predict inflation, market changes and competitor pricing shifts, or future features which hike up the cost of running the app (e.g. AI features). Meaning your lifetime subscription cost could go from being a safe financial bet one year, to significantly undervaluing your app a couple of years later.
Another downside: upsells. It’s much harder to upsell someone who’s already on lifetime. Sure, you can highlight new premium tiers that aren’t included, but it’s messy. Moving a customer from lifetime to a subscription later is basically impossible. If tier upgrades are central to your monetization strategy, lifetime subscriptions may not be the right fit.
There’s also the mechanics to consider. Switching from a subscription to a lifetime plan usually requires customers to cancel their existing subscription manually before purchasing the lifetime plan. This can be confusing, sometimes leading to accidental double payments, refund requests, support headaches, and unhappy loyal customers.
There’s also the aforementioned important technical detail: in the app stores, lifetime isn’t technically a subscription. It’s classified as a non-consumable in-app purchase, which comes with a few implications:
- No subscription features: you can’t offer free trials or the usual subscription upgrade paths.
- Manual migration required: customers can’t simply tap ‘upgrade’ from monthly to lifetime, they must cancel first then repurchase. Some apps handle this for the user, others explain it clearly. Miscommunication here is often what leads to double charges, refunds, and support challenges.
There are also future product headaches to consider. Pushing lifetime subscribers to a new premium version can require maintaining an extra product version, and makes it hard to get them to pay again. Matt Ronge, CEO of Astropad, learned this the hard way: ongoing costs were high, making it difficult to support lifetime users while building new features.
He shared on Sub Club that if he could go back, he’d have been even more generous to early customers. His advice: don’t rely on the stick; build something so good that customers want to upgrade voluntarily.
From an investor perspective, lifetime revenue is a one-off hit, whereas subscriptions are predictable and recurring. Predictable revenue compounds over time and increases company valuation. Leaning too heavily on lifetime offers can drag down valuation, which is why you rarely see lifetime subscriptions in B2B SaaS, where running costs are high and recurring revenue multipliers drive growth.
Lifetime subscriptions at a glance
We’ve covered a lot, so before diving deeper, let’s summarize the key benefits and downsides of lifetime subscriptions:
Lifetime subscriptions at a glance
| Perspective | Benefits | Downsides |
| Customer | No ongoing subscription fatigueOne-and-done paymentCan back a new app earlyA great deal if used long-term | Risk if the company folds‘Lifetime’ = lifetime of the productNo trials possible (App Store treats it as non-consumable)Feature exclusions in the fine print |
| Brand | Upfront cashLocks in value from would-be churnersFunds content or runway (esp. bootstrapped)Works well as promo (Black Friday, New Year)Can be used for referrals / tackling big competitors | Can cannibalize loyal high-LTV customersHarder to upsell or tier laterMessy mechanics (manual cancel + rebuy)Support headaches (double charges, refunds)Ongoing costs may outpace lifetime revenueLess attractive to investors (MRR > upfront cash) |
Should you offer lifetime subscriptions?
To make this easy, I’ve created a simple quiz. The more ‘yes’ answers, the stronger the case for lifetime subscriptions. The more ‘no’ answers, the more carefully you should evaluate before testing a lifetime offer.
- Are your ongoing costs per user low? High ongoing costs (e.g., many AI apps) make lifetime subscriptions less attractive.
- Is valuation a lower priority right now? If you’re not gearing up for investors or an exit, lifetime can be a smart move. If valuation is key, investors tend to value recurring revenue over front-loaded cash.
- Do you need the upfront cash to fund future improvements or improve your runway? Lifetime subscriptions can provide a significant cash boost to fund development or growth.
- Is retention weak or uncertain? If customers churn early, lifetime offers can lock in value upfront while you work on improving retention, and give you a larger user base to learn from.
- Do you have a segment asking for lifetime subscriptions? If users continue to request a lifetime option (especially older or potentially subscription-fatigued cohorts), that’s a sign it could be worth testing.
- Are lifetime subscriptions common in your industry or sector? Not saying you should copy others, but if it’s rare, there may be a good reason why.
- Are upsells and higher tiers not a big part of your model? Lifetime subscriptions can block future growth, as users are less likely to upgrade or pay extra after buying lifetime access.
Don’t dash off just yet! If you decide to move forward with lifetime subscriptions, there are still a few important considerations to plan for.
Considerations when planning lifetime subscriptions
Even if you answered ‘yes’ to all the quiz questions, it’s still important to carefully consider a few key factors before rolling out lifetime subscriptions:
1. How to price your lifetime subscriptions
Pricing is crucial: set it too low, and you risk eroding your MRR; set it too high, and you may scare off potential customers. Lifetime subscription pricing varies widely across apps, from 2x annual pricing to nearly 12x annual pricing, depending on the product and market.
Just look at how different apps approach it (note: prices regularly change and vary by country; these examples are based on current pricing in one market):
| App name | Annual price | Lifetime price | Lifetime price x annual |
| Calm | $79 | $399 | 5.0x |
| Jumpspeak | $69 | $249 | 3.6x |
| Moonly | $28.98 | $59.98 | 2.1x |
| Fiit | £119.99 | £375 (£299 on offer) | 3.1x (2.5x on offer) |
| Placify | $14.99 | $49.99 | 3.3x |
| Waking Up | $129.99 | $1500 | 11.5x |
To determine where your lifetime subscription should sit within that range, consider:
- Annual pricing
- Annual churn
- Gross margin
- Your category and retention patterns
Strong retention and low margins generally allow for higher pricing. It’s also worth examining your LTV by cohort, not just the average:
- How are recent customers retaining?
- How do the most active customers retain, and what is their LTV?
This approach helps ensure you don’t cannibalize your own revenue by pricing too low.
If in doubt, I’d always recommend going higher rather than lower, like Waking Up, the meditation app, does. I struggled to find their lifetime subscription offer (more on why that is a good thing later), but the Wall Street Journal reported that they charged $1,500 for their Lifetime Subscription — more than 11x their annual price. This ensures it only convinces the most loyal of customers. and is worth it for Waking Up.
2. Which audience to target and where you’ll promote it
Your target audience is closely tied to pricing strategy. My hypothesis: Waking Up aims to convert its most loyal customers, while Calm uses lifetime subscriptions more as a churn-reduction or holiday offer, pricing it lower at about 5x their annual subscription.
Knowing your target also helps determine where to promote the offer. Most lifetime offers aren’t prominently featured on the app’s paywall. Instead, they are often sent via email or promoted as a one-off opportunity.
In some cases, apps consciously offer lifetime subscriptions to all users as part of their strategy. This is common for utility-style apps, like Placify, a personal mapping app:
And Moonly, a moon phases and calendar app. For apps where pricing is relatively low or usage fluctuates month-to-month, lifetime subscriptions can be a standard part of the offering, rather than a limited-time promotion.
In reality, the most Lifetime Offers I’ve seen and received have been through email, like Fiit, the fitness app:
In this case, it felt like a win-back attempt, as I had just canceled my subscription. Overall, I’d recommend testing your lifetime offer first via owned channels — email, push, or in-app notifications — before promoting it more broadly. Of course, the approach will depend on which audience you plan to target.
3. Your terms and conditions
Not the most exciting part, but absolutely critical to prevent lifetime subscriptions from backfiring. (Quick disclaimer: this is not legal advice! This is where you get legal involved.)
It’s important to think through considerations like:
- Which plan do they receive (if you have multiple tiers)
- Whether it can be combined with other discounts (I’d advise against it)
- How major future changes to the app are handled
- How does the transition work from subscription to lifetime
The second point is especially important. For example, if you offer family plans on lifetime subscriptions, users could end up getting far more value than you intended, cutting into your revenue.
4. Determine your test strategy
By now, you should have a good sense of your initial lifetime subscription test strategy:
- How to price it: don’t be afraid to A/B test different multipliers (5x vs. 8x vs. 12x annual) and track not just conversions, but who converts
- Who sees it: start by targeting lapsed users or segments with low retention rates
- When to show it: test seasonal promotions (Black Friday, New Year’s Day etc.) before deciding whether to make it evergreen
However, there is still one key final part to work out: how can you measure its success?
It’s nearly impossible to know what those customers would have spent otherwise, and you’re likely working off a predicted LTV for the cohorts you’re comparing it to.
Instead, you want to be looking at:
- Conversion rate: how does it convert compared to other offers, and which segments are converting?
- ARPU vs similar cohorts: are you earning more or less than you would have with traditional subscriptions?
It’s also worth monitoring:
- Engagement of lifetime subscribers: paid users who don’t engage are less likely to advocate for your app
- Refunds and customer support load: watch for double payment issues and keep an eye on refund requests and support volume
- Mix of revenue: track the percentage of revenue from lifetime vs. subscription — too high a share of lifetime revenue could compromise compounding MRR in exchange for short-term cash
Finally, start testing through your owned channels and keep it smaller or temporary. This allows you to fine-tune, learn from early data, and optimize before a full rollout.
So, was my Calm lifetime subscription worth it?
For me, yes. Buying Calm for life removed the mental load of one more subscription, and even years later, I still feel like I got a bargain. But that’s the key: lifetime subscriptions usually feel like a win for the customer, not necessarily the brand.
If Calm had kept me on an annual plan, they’d likely have earned significantly more from me by now. Instead, they traded long-term revenue for upfront cash, which may have made sense at the time to fund new features, celebrity narrators, and all the content they’ve since built.
That’s the trade-off every app faces. Lifetime subscriptions can unlock cash when you need it, build loyalty, or help smaller apps stand out against bigger players. But they can also cannibalize your most valuable customers, limit upsell opportunities, and create operational headaches that last for years.
If you’re considering lifetime subscriptions, run the numbers, test carefully, and know who you’re really building it for. Because when your customer is thinking, “What a deal!”, you need to be absolutely sure you’re thinking the same on your side.