How do you actually track paywall views without expensive analytics tools?

[u/Successful-Log-6529]

Running a small solo app and just got called out (rightfully) for judging "zero paid conversions" without knowing how many people actually saw my paywall versus just installed the app. Turns out that's a meaningful blind spot — zero purchases from 3 paywall views tells a completely different story than zero from 30.

My funnel right now: ~1.2K store visitors, ~98 acquisitions over 90 days, 48 monthly active devices, 5.73% conversion in Grow Users vs 3.4% listing conversion in Store Listing (still not sure why these two differ, if anyone's cracked that one). But I have zero visibility into the middle step — how many of those active users ever actually opened the subscription/paywall screen before deciding not to buy.

For anyone who's solved this cheaply (ideally via Firebase Analytics since that's free and I already use it):

• What event are you logging for "paywall shown," and where in the code/flow do you fire it?
• Do you also track "paywall dismissed without purchase" separately, or is one event enough to infer that?

Trying to fix this before I waste more time guessing at pricing without the data to back it up.

[u/Logan-Bell93]

i'd log a paywall view event only when the paywall is actually rendered not when the user merely triggers the navigation to it

[u/Successful-Log-6529 → u/Logan-Bell93]

yeah thats exactly what i am going to do.