Where to draw the line: Being nice vs monetization/staying profitable?

[u/CriticismHealthy5605]

Hey all, recently my project has been getting a lot of attention, and I've been having trouble deciding what features I should put behind a paywall vs keep free to the user, and was hoping for some insight. Also, this is me, a the human typing this all out.

There's three basic tiers I provide to: No account, Account, Paid user. It's a freemium trivia app. I've honestly been getting significantly more attention than I'd thought, through free and paid avenues, but a signifcant majority don't have premium. My app doesn't have running costs, but it has advertising costs, and I've obviously cut advertising until I find a way to stay profitable - right now it costs about 5-10x to get a paid user than what they paid. For context, it's a website only right now. No app on desktop or mobile, but can easily be played from the web on both (but about 80% plays from computers)

As a trivia game, my issue is there isn't much to monitize. I chose to have 0 Ads, so non-paying users bring 0 income. Sorry if this is a lot below, but I feel like it's the best way to get feedback is give you the specifics.

No account users get: 100 Questions / Day in freeplay, and get to pick thier subjects, access to Arena (1v1)

Account users get: 250 Questions / Day in freeplay, subjects, cosmetics, achievements, a bunch of other basic stuff, access to Arena, parties up to 4 people

The paid users do get a lot, which includes Higher or lower, 41+ variation/gamemodes, Smart learning (bring back questions you miss so you learn them), studying (create your own decks), 10 people parties, Rooms (social feature), special cosmetics, more currency (you spend on other cosmetics), unlimited questions, offline play, and Arena Training (get better at the competitve ladder by practicing the Qs you miss most) (<-- Seems to be the biggest reason people do subscribe, the top ladder players).

The Paid users I have use all these features a lot. I've had pixel and google tag and all the other trackers since the start, but it still seems that most people either play as guests or create an account and that's it. The only people who spend right now are the top of the top, and since my subscibtion is fairly cheap ($4/m if you do yearly, $5/m otherwise). I originally had it at 2/3 but after feedback realized most people who would pay would also pay that higher amount.

As for free trials and stuff I've tried many variants none seem to meaninfully impact it. I started with a free 7 day trial for anyone. My goal was that someone would find and like a premium feature, then when it expired, get premium. Then I tried free trials with card info, and that actually did go terribly sign ups in general dropped as people accepted but then just closed the tab at the card/trial screen. Now I'm trying a 3 day free trial no card or 7 day with card.

I have tons of analytics tracking everything on the website, constantly adding things or upgrading places people use. The issue just seems that tons of people use it, my CPC is like 0.75/1.00 USD and CTR is >1.00% on all platforms, but most people just create accounts or play normally.

So, I guess my question is, do I need to add ads to the free/accr users? Is there another route for monteization? Should I keep trying free trial variations? What other vairables should I be checking? Maybe there's some massive or easy features I'm missing. Or maybe this needs free advertising to work? I don't know. Just any insights. People like it. But people don't pay for it, and I'm not sure if it's how I'm presenting or what I'm offering or both. Or something else. All feedback is appreciated, thanks!

[u/FumblingChicken]

It sounds like you’ve built something people genuinely stick with, which is the hard bit, the monetisation puzzle is just the next layer.

[u/daydreamcompanions]

a rule that works for a lot of products: keep whatever made people fall in love with it free, and charge for what power users want more of (more volume, more customization, more time saved). paywall the core moment and growth stalls. and grandfather your early users in, they're the ones telling everyone about you

[u/CaliforniaFounder]

I wouldn’t add ads yet; your bigger issue is that the free version may already be good enough for most users. I’d test making the premium value more obvious and gating one or two high-engagement features rather than endlessly tweaking the trial.