I was leaving $100k on the table

August 11, 2026

Hey there,

A soft paywall on your app feels generous. 

Let people in, let them poke around, win them over, and trust they'll upgrade once they see how good the app is.

Spoiler: They won't.

Every user you let in for free is a user you've just taught that your app costs nothing. 

Now you have to fight to un-teach it, and that's a fight you rarely win. Once someone's been using your app for free, asking them to pay later feels like you're taking something away that's already theirs.

A soft paywall runs on hope. You're relying on the user to be motivated enough on their own to go upgrade. And almost nobody is.

I know this because it nearly sank Puff Count (My last app I exited at $44k MRR).

When I launched, I had no hard paywall. I was charging $0.99 a month and letting the app run mostly free.

The marketing was working, dropping vapes into water was ripping on the algorithm, and installs were pouring in.

And I was making almost nothing. Conversion to paid sat around 1%. 

All those downloads, all those views, and the money just wasn't there, because I'd trained every user that Puff Count was free.

Then I put up a hard paywall and removed the free plan. A free trial but only on the yearly plan.

For the user it was commit or leave. 

Conversion jumped from around 1% to about 20%.

Same app. Same traffic.

If I'd launched with a hard paywall, Puff Count would have done another $100k easily. 

I left that on the table for a year because I thought free users would eventually pay.

Every app crushing it on the App Store right now runs a hard paywall. If the goal is revenue, that's the formula.

People who genuinely need your app will pay a premium because you're solving a real problem for them. 

So stop training your users to expect free.

Put up a hard paywall. Make them commit. Give the trial only on your yearly plan.

Peace,
Steven