Paywall Audit.
A free audit of the framing and default changes that lift trial starts without discounting.
No call attached. Results land by email. Run by Michael Berliner, who led product growth at MasterClass and built product-led growth at Calm.
A single-surface teardown of your paywall. We read placement, plan ladder, trial clarity, anchoring, and the trust signals sitting near the purchase button, then rate the surface against paywalls in your model.
The output is five ranked changes with impact and effort split out, and the reasoning behind each one. Most of what we find moves framing or default rather than price, which is why it lifts revenue without touching the discount.
This is the deepest single-surface audit we run, built on the same method as our paid CRO engagements.
What you get back
- A rating on the surface, with what it rests on stated plainly
- What we observed, itemized
- Top five changes with impact, effort, and the principle behind each
- Surface benchmarks from your matched profile, plus an ICE-ranked backlog
It starts the moment you submit. Results usually land in your inbox within a couple of hours.
What it looks like
Fictional sample app. Kettlebrook is invented, and its paywall screens were built to illustrate the format. The method, the benchmarks and the sourcing are the real ones.
The paywall has no purchase button, and the 7-day trial sits behind a toggle that ships off, so the only thing this screen offers is a straight $79.99 annual charge. Everyone who closes it instead is handed 40% off annual at $47.99 on the next tap, which is exactly the annual discounting you are trying to avoid. Start with the plan list: add a primary button reading "Start my 7-day free trial", and fold the trial into the annual plan's own terms so it is on by default.
| # | Change | Impact | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Add a primary button under the plan list, repeating the selected plan and price | High | Low |
| 2 | Remove the trial toggle and make the trial part of the annual plan's terms | High | Low |
| 3 | Reframe annual as "$6.67/mo, billed annually at $79.99" beneath the $14.99/mo row | High | Low |
| 4 | Add "No payment due now" and "Cancel anytime" directly under the button | Medium | Low |
| 5 | Add a trial timeline under the button with real dates | High | Medium |
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Everything below is what the audit actually needs to run. Nothing extra.