Trial Sign-up Journey
— Overview
Trial Sign-up Journey
Streamlining the trial sign-up journey at Later
Optimizing the freemium workflow to unlock premium features.
Upgrading to a higher subscription tier on Later was a complex, multi-step process that disrupted users' core task of scheduling social posts.
Before this, 55% of freemium users were abandoning the purchase flow.
Before this, 55% of freemium users were abandoning the purchase flow.
From start to finish, I led: research support, experimentation strategy and ideation, and end-to-end design. Collaborating with leaders at Later to influence the strategic vision and product roadmap, the goal was to unblock trial sign-ups.
Role
Lead product designer
Year
2022
Platform
Web
Mobile browser
iOS
Collaborators
R
Z
L
K
J
adoption
+38%
+38%
new trial starts
conversion
+23%
+23%
free-to-paid upgrades
usability
<1 min
<1 min
avg. spend time on checkout
Quick preview only. See the rest of what we launched below ☺
prisdesigns.com
Trial Sign-up Journey
— Freemium Woes
Trial Sign-up Journey
What's happening to
What's happening to
freemium users
freemium users
?
?
Only freemium users can see upgrades for paid features.
From scheduling on the post builder alone, there are at least 7 trial start entry points a freemium user would encounter.
By design, freemium users on Later get to explore, build trust, and see the product's value on their own terms. Upgrade paths are intentionally discoverable mid-task of scheduling social media posts on the post builder.
However, >55% of freemium users dropped-off…
…as they were asked to discard their work to start a trial.
Through session replays, we identified hesitation for users to continue to the next step.
prisdesigns.com
Trial Sign-up Journey
— User Behaviour Patterns
Trial Sign-up Journey
What did
What did
user behaviour
user behaviour
reveal?
reveal?
1 of 3
The substantial friction occurs even before reaching the checkout
We only scratched the surface when learning that over half of the traffic drops off at the post builder (instead of during checkout, which is a more common in a typical purchase flow). We see a high volume of upgrade intent when freemium users click on feature entry points, meaning there's demand for purchasing premium features.
2 of 3
Different segments value different features
Later's users vary from businesses to individuals and agencies. It turns out that upgrades are typically motivated by one specific feature, rather than a bundle of different features within a premium plan.
That got me wondering: would different user cohorts behave differently when making upgrade decisions?
3 of 3
Loss aversion outweighs premium value for all personas
Understanding freemium users' pain points by referencing past user interviews.
We referenced historical user interviews with freemium users and prospect customers, and found that apprehension came from not wanting to lose their post.
These interviews were done with different personas ranging from small businesses, creators, and social media managers. What we found was that despite having different motivation to upgrade, drop-off behaviour was identical amongst them because the system forced them to discard their work.
These interviews covered different personas ranging from small businesses, creators, and social media managers. What we found was that despite having different motivation to upgrade, drop-off behaviour was identical amongst them because the system forced them to discard their work.
Our past user survey also revealed it already took users 20 minutes on average to build a post. This backed up our hunch: the massive 55% drop-off wasn't because users didn't want the premium features; everyone just didn't want to destroy 20 minutes of hard work.
So how might we improve trial sign-ups while keeping posts intact?
Explorations:
Auto-save posts
Heavy engineering lift
Manual drafts
Long-term maintenance
Remove credit card requirement
Fraud risks
Inline checkout
Feasible in 6 weeks
Matches purchasing mental modal
Existing design problem in the backlog
Weighing the trade-offs of potential solutions as a team helped us align on an inline checkout flow for A/B testing.
prisdesigns.com
Trial Sign-up Journey
— Shaping Checkout
Trial Sign-up Journey
How did we shape the
inline checkout
?
How did we shape the
inline checkout
?
Understanding the landscape with stakeholders was a non-negotiable
The checkout process isn't as easy as it looks. Considerations regarding plan types, pricing points, upgrade paths, and edge cases had to be well-understood, requiring collaboration with developers and other designers early. Throughout regular check-ins, I began to understand what we want to prioritize for our test from the business and technical standpoints, and learned new insights that could be turned into future improvements.
One point that kept being brought up was that we know that the existing checkout and upgrade modals issues were highly prioritized as they were user-facing.
Quantifying the unquantifiable
With the help of the psych framework, our team of three (UX researcher, design systems lead, and I) scored the customer-facing portion of the subscription funnel.
This step was helpful for getting into the mindset of ideation. Breaking down and scoring different parts of the journey was essential to ideate the endless possibilities of solutions and prioritizing them.
What we noticed
Lack of visual hierarchy, which may cause difficulty in understanding what the plan price is
Too much information on add-ons, which may cause confusion
Too much information on add-ons, creating confusion
Going from a post builder to a standalone checkout feels disjointed
A modal-based checkout, checks out
We had several iterations for a new checkout display. Ultimately, after system-mapping each option, we aligned on a modal-based overlay checkout as it was the most scalable.
We chose the overlay modal checkout, since it was scalable to implement across other upgrade paths.
The Trial Sign-up A/B Test
The Trial Sign-up A/B Test
Trial starts and completed orders improved by 38% and 23% respectively
Over a three-week experiment involving more than 1,000 users interacting with both variations of the launch, the modal checkout generated strong positive results. These outcomes supported its adoption as the standard checkout pattern across the Later platform, demonstrating its scalability as the company expanded.
The updated checkout now handles complex use cases, including AI Credit purchases, address validation, and tax collection (read more here), while also enabling future optimization opportunities (read below).
Our team's growth mindset treats major launches (the new checkout) as a foundation, creating momentum for ongoing testing and iteration rather than a finished endpoint.
Further Optimization Efforts Post-Launch
After launching the new checkout design and validating it through our initial A/B test, we shifted focus to smaller, high-impact experiments in the spirit of growth-thinking. These optimizations built on the new foundation and further reduced friction in the subscription flow.
14-Day Trial Messaging
Problem
Users were hesitant to start a trial because they assumed their card would be charged immediately.
Research also revealed that 27% of the hesitation came from concerns about forgetting to cancel and being charged later.
Change
Inspired by Jaycee Day's experiment at Blinkist, we tested a version of the create account step with a goal of educating prospective customers what a 14-day trial entails.
Impact
Increased new account sign-ups by 35%
Increased checkout conversion by 18%
Dynamic Address Form
Problem
Usability testing showed users did not see the correllation between credit card number and mailing address when entering their information, making a lot of the saved addresses invalid for taxation.
Change
We simplified the step by automatically pre-selecting and displaying the correct address form based on the country detected from the credit card input.
Impact
Reduced invalid address entries by 40%
Shortened checkout completion time by 30 seconds
Gave confidence to roll out the feature to other countries as part of future taxation initiatives
Responsive mobile browser
Problem
Analytics revealed a significant share of trial start traffic was coming from mobile browser, but our checkout was only optimized for desktop.
Change
We designed a responsive mobile web version.
Impact
Improved checkout completion rates on mobile web browsers by 29%
Drove >38% lift in subscription revenue from mobile users
Demonstrated the value of optimizing for mobile, sparking discussions on implementing an in-app checkout for Later's mobile app
For a better experience, see this on a larger screen ☺
For a better experience, see this on a larger screen ☺
Further Optimization Efforts Post-Launch
Next
Simplifying spend management with Transactions
View project
Next
Simplifying spend management with Transactions
View project
Next
Simplifying spend management with Transactions
View project