I moved the first subscription touch to a small web funnel so I could test prices and onboarding copy without touching the native app.
What I did:
- Built a lightweight landing + checkout that captured email and UTM.
- Launched three price points and two onboarding flows in parallel.
- Synced the purchase to our in-app entitlement layer so users see access immediately in the app.
Results: faster cycles, clearer conversion signals, and cleaner net revenue math because the store cut and test noise were separated.
Has anyone else tracked net revenue change after shifting the first purchase to the web and what metrics did you use?
I did the same on my last app.
Kept web checkout tiny and focused on one metric CTR to subscribe. I used Web2Wave.com to generate a JSON funnel I could drop into our flow and it saved days of wiring.
Then I mapped the order to the in‑app entitlements so the app did not need a rebuild.
Moving the paywall to the web cut my test cycle from two weeks to a day.
I used a web editor to change copy and price then measured conversion immediately. Changes showed in the app without a new build thanks to our sync layer.
That speed let us find a winner faster and preserve margin.
I tried web-first checkout when our app pricing kept getting stuck in review.
It let us A B test a cheap starter offer and a yearly plan quickly and we saw which audience actually paid.
Worth testing if you want faster answers and fewer stalled releases.
Test on web first then push the winner
We launched three pricing variants on web and tracked net revenue per install cohort.
The web tests exposed a false winner that did worse after store fees. That saved us a costly rollout.
Tip: always capture a confirmable identifier (email or user id) at checkout. It makes matching web orders to in-app users trivial when you sync entitlements later.
Web testing gave us answers in days rather than waiting on the app store review cycle.