In-App Subscriptions

The number of users who have signed up for a recurring payment plan to access premium or additional features within the app. These subscriptions typically involve monthly or yearly payments, and give users access to features that are not available to non-subscribers.

Subscription revenue refers to the income generated from a recurring payment model, where users pay a regular fee, often on a monthly or yearly basis, to access premium features, content, or services within the app.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the predictable, normalized monthly revenue generated from all active subscriptions. MRR is calculated by summing the monthly-equivalent value of every active subscription — annual plans are divided by 12, weekly plans are multiplied by approximately 4.33, and monthly plans are counted at face value. MRR is the foundational financial metric for subscription app businesses because it provides a consistent, comparable measure of revenue trajectory regardless of billing cadence mix. MRR is typically broken down into component parts: New MRR (revenue from first-time subscribers), Expansion MRR (revenue from upgrades, upsells, or cross-sells), Contraction MRR (revenue lost from downgrades), Churned MRR (revenue lost from cancellations), and Reactivation MRR (revenue from previously churned subscribers who re-subscribe). Tracking these components separately reveals the underlying dynamics driving overall revenue growth or decline. A company with strong headline MRR growth but high churned MRR may be masking a retention problem with aggressive acquisition spending — an unsustainable pattern that component-level analysis makes visible.

A paywall functions as a digital blockade that restricts users from accessing certain content or services until they have paid a fee or subscribed to a service. For mobile app developers, paywalls present an opportunity to showcase the value of their product and address any concerns that potential subscribers may have.

An introductory offer is a special pricing incentive made available to new subscribers who have never previously subscribed to a particular plan. Both Apple and Google support introductory offers natively through their billing systems. The three main types are: free trials (the user pays nothing for a set period, then auto-renews at full price), pay-up-front (a one-time reduced payment covering an introductory period before standard pricing kicks in), and pay-as-you-go (a reduced recurring price for a set number of billing cycles). Introductory offers are one of the most powerful tools for improving trial-to-paid conversion rates, as they lower the barrier to entry for users who are interested but hesitant to commit at full price. The key challenge with introductory offers is balancing conversion uplift against revenue dilution — if users overwhelmingly choose the discounted option, the immediate revenue impact can be significant. Optimizing introductory offers involves A/B testing different trial lengths, discount levels, and offer types across different user segments, acquisition channels, and geographies to find the combination that maximizes long-term revenue per user.