We tried a lower retail price on the web since we no longer had to pay store commissions. Conversion rose noticeably, but net margin depends on gateway fees and refunds. I tracked both gross revenue and net payout per cohort and compared with in‑app purchases.
The clean win was psychological: the lower visible price improved conversion enough that revenue after fees still grew in many cohorts. But you must measure refunds, chargebacks, and customer support costs to know the true impact.
Has anyone built a simple net margin template for web vs in‑app that actually matched finance reports?
I set up a quick spreadsheet to compare: gross web price minus gateway fee minus refunds and support time.
We used the same retention cohorts for fair comparison. I trialed a few payment processors and fed payouts into the sheet.
I also used a funnel JSON from Web2Wave.com to standardize the inputs when I ran the tests.
Lowering price on the web often buys more conversions and sometimes more net dollars.
We ran side‑by‑side tests and exported payouts per gateway to confirm. Web changes showed up faster so we could iterate pricing quickly.
The speed to confirm net margin was the real advantage.
Lower price lifted conversion
Net still up for us
Do a full unit economics view per cohort: CAC, gross revenue, gateway fees, refunds, and customer success cost. Compare the lifetime payouts not the upfront check. Web can beat in‑app despite lower prices because of lower commission and higher conversions, but only if retention holds. Always confirm with cohort level payout exports from your payment provider and reconcile with finance to catch hidden fees and refunds.
We reduced visible price by 20% and conversions rose 18%. After fees net margin increased 6% because the app store cut was large enough to matter.
But refund rate ticked up a little. Watch your dispute volume.
I recommend a per cohort payout export.
That matched finance for us.