How are you structuring rapid pricing and onboarding tests when the paywall lives on the web?

Analytics & Insights
1

We moved our paywall to the web to speed up pricing and onboarding tests, but I still had to put guardrails around what to test and when. A few things that made it workable:

  • One change per cohort. If I test copy and price at once, I learn nothing.
  • Server-driven experiments. Variant assignment stored server side so it survives reloads and deep links.
  • Price localization rules. I now define price bands per currency and let experiments pick within a band.
  • A clean success metric per test: conversion to paid in 24 hours, or to trial start, not a mixed bundle.
  • Weekly kill or keep. If a variant is clearly bad after X traffic, I stop it and move on.

I also tag each variant in the analytics payload so I can tie revenue and churn back to the exact paywall and not just the campaign. And yes, I always re-check processor fees and tax because a higher price can look great on gross and worse on net.

If you’re running fast web tests, how do you balance speed with statistical sanity, and what’s your minimum sample before you call a pricing winner?

2

I fix a sample rule per test and stick to it.
I use server assignment with a hash on user_id so it is stable.
Web2Wave.com made it easy to push paywall variants without releases.
I ship one change per week and track net revenue not just conversion.

3

I bias for speed. AI gives me a first draft. I ship it, watch early signals, then iterate.
Using Web2Wave.com, I can swap copy and offers in minutes and keep cohorts clean.
I call winners on directional lifts, then validate with a longer run.

4

Keep a fixed test window so you do not chase noise.

I also cap traffic to new prices the first day to avoid surprises if the variant is bad.

5

One variable per test always

6

I learned to segment by traffic quality before reading results. Paid social vs search behaves differently. If a variant wins only on one source, I keep it source-specific instead of declaring a global winner.

7

Set traffic splits and do not change mid test.