How Linearity Curve increased trial conversion by with a strategic opt-in paywall

Overview

Linearity Curve is a professional, high-powered vector graphic design app used by creatives and professionals worldwide. With free trials as their primary conversion mechanism, it was essential to them to maximize quality sign-ups.

The Linearity team used Superwall to test a strategic hypothesis about user commitment and trial quality.

The challenge

Linearity Curve was facing a challenge with user commitment after the free trial:

• Low-quality trials. The previous model offered a default trial, which attracted users who didn't really intend to purchase. This meant lots of trial starts, but few conversions.

• Commitment friction. The team hypothesized that a user who actively chooses a trial is more committed to the product and therefore more likely to convert.

• Complex flow testing. Testing an opt-in feature would typically require intricate, time-consuming engineering work to manage the two variants.

The solution

Linearity Curve used an A/B test that directly compared users that opted in versus default users in the conversion funnel:

• Control paywall. Featured a default trial offering, where the trial was automatically included in the initial purchase flow.

• Variant paywall. Featured an opt-in trial option, requiring the user to take an explicit action to select the trial before continuing.

Analytics allowed the team to measure the user quality from each variant, validating whether the friction of "opting in" was profitable.

The results

The experiment confirmed the team's hypothesis that including an intentional opt-in resulted in a higher quality user pool:

• Trial conversion rate soared. The opt-in trial variant resulted in a 10% increase in the trial conversion rate, showing that the higher lead quality outweighed the lower trial starts.

• Validated commitment model. The test demonstrated that users who actively committed to the trial were more likely to find value and less likely to abandon the subscription.

• Data-driven feature gate. The team gained confidence in implementing behavior-based trial offers, knowing that intentional user choices lead to better outcomes.

About Superwall

Superwall is the centralized monetization suite that converts data into revenue. It provides product, growth, and engineering teams with a unified platform to deploy paywalls, manage subscriptions, and ensure every experiment is a profitable, data-backed decision.