Converting app onboarding and hard paywall

A long, personalised onboarding that educates, invokes emotion/FOMO and shows the ‘gotcha’ result, followed by an unskippable paywall (usually with a trial) whose price is A/B tested.

Components

• Educate the user about what the app does / their problem
• Personalise with guiding questions
• Invoke emotion, FOMO and ‘scientific’ charts
• Show the gotcha moment but put results behind the paywall
• Hard paywall with free trial; A/B test price for LTV

Who describes it

• George Lampropolis — Onboarding formula: Educate, personalise with guiding questions, create FOMO, then let the user do the gotcha moment but withhold the result until the paywall. (George Lampropolis · George Lampropolis (Dec 2025) ▶ 09:07)
• Connor Burd — Four elements of a converting onboarding: What an onboarding needs to convert. (Connor Burd · Connor Burd (Oct 2025) ▶ 04:02)
• Steven Cravotta — Hard paywall monetisation: Free app, onboarding that walks users through their problem, then an unskippable paywall requiring a (trial) subscription, with price A/B tested for highest LTV. (Steven Cravotta · Steven Cravotta (Sep 2024) ▶ 09:53)