Introductory offer

A subscriber who has never bought sees $3 for the first month. A subscriber who cancelled last spring sees $9. Neither of them chose which price to see, and neither can be moved to the other side.

That eligibility rule is set and enforced by the store, and it separates introductory offers from every other discount a publisher can run. Apple and Google both check whether this subscriber has previously held the product, and both will refuse the offer to someone who has, which means the offer cannot be used to win anyone back. It also means the offer is spent on first sight. Showing it in a placement that converts poorly does not save it for a better moment later; the subscriber has seen the number, and the standard price now reads as an increase.

The three shapes the stores support do different jobs. A free period defers the decision, a pay-up-front discount takes commitment in exchange for a lower total, and a discounted recurring period lowers the monthly figure for several cycles. Which one wins is worth testing rather than assuming, and the test has to be judged on retained revenue past the intro window rather than on the initial conversion rate, because the cheapest entry point reliably converts best and does not reliably keep anyone. Whether the standard price is stated plainly next to the offer is part of the same question, since a subscriber surprised at the first full charge churns at the worst possible moment. That presentation and its variants get built and run in Pages and Experiments, and the trial conversion rate it produces is the number to hold it to.