We’ve had solid conversion rates from free to paid so far.
My co-founder believes ads will monetize users who won’t upgrade regardless. I feel it undermines the push for people to subscribe.
Has anyone tried this shift? How did it affect your conversion rates?
Ran ads on a productivity app two years ago. Your co-founder’s partly right - we definitely pulled revenue from users who’d never pay anyway.
But conversions took a hit. Free-to-paid dropped 8% over three months. Users got used to ads and lost that friction that normally pushes them to upgrade.
Worked for us since ad revenue per non-converting user was solid. If your free-to-paid rates are already strong though, you’d probably do better focusing on getting new users instead of squeezing existing free ones.
Test it small first. Try limiting ads to users who’ve been free 60+ days and show zero upgrade signals.