Short answer: for most Shopify apps, neither a real free plan nor an opt-in trial. Go opt-out. There is no real free plan, the merchant subscribes to a paid plan to start the trial, and a usage-based app puts its max fee in that subscription. First Page Sage measured 48.8% trial-to-paid for opt-out against 18.2% for opt-in. In general SaaS, opt-out pays for that with fewer trial starts. For Shopify apps it doesn’t, because Shopify holds the merchant’s card and does the billing.
“Pricing is the most common untapped growth lever,” says Bessemer Venture Partners. For a Shopify app, pricing shapes conversion in two places. First on the app store page, when the merchant decides whether to add your app. Then at the end of the trial, when they decide if the value is worth the fee.
Your monetization flow sets what happens at that second moment.
| Model | How the merchant starts | When the trial ends |
|---|---|---|
| Real free plan | Uses the app without subscribing to a paid plan | Has to choose to upgrade |
| Opt-in trial | Uses the app without subscribing to a paid plan | Has to choose to pay |
| Opt-out trial | Subscribes to a paid plan to start the trial | Billed unless they cancel |
A free plan and an opt-in trial both end in an active decision. Opt-out turns it into a passive one. Passive conversion beats active conversion.
First Page Sage looked at 86 SaaS companies between Q1 2022 and Q3 2025.
| Trial type | Visitor to trial | Trial to paid |
|---|---|---|
| Opt-out: card up front, billed unless cancelled | 2.5% | 48.8% |
| Opt-in: no card, has to choose to pay | 8.5% | 18.2% |
Read the two columns together. Opt-in gets more visitors through the door. Opt-out gets far more trialists to pay. Across SaaS, opt-out usually loses at the door.
The door is the card. Asking for it up front is what costs opt-out its trial starts in SaaS.
A Shopify app never asks for it. Shopify already holds the merchant’s card, and Shopify does the billing. So the entry friction that holds opt-out back elsewhere disappears in the Shopify App Store. You keep the opt-out conversion at the end of the trial without paying for it at the start.
Three rules, from my January 2026 webinar, “The $100K MRR Blueprint”:
The subscription comes right after install. Onboarding comes after that. Shopify apps with that flow, install to subscribe or install to a pricing page to subscribe, reach 50%+ install to subscribe. In the Prys 2026 benchmarks across 400+ active apps, the average is 29.89% and the top quartile 49.96%.
Keep the steps between install and subscribe to a minimum, and handle the max-fee approval so it doesn’t stall the merchant. That flow is part of our Shopify app funnel optimization.
Opt-out doesn’t force one shape on your pricing page. There are three.
| Setup | How it works |
|---|---|
| 1. Free plan that includes usage-based charges, with a max | The plan is free to start. Usage is billed up to the max in the subscription. |
| 2. Free for development stores, pricing page after install, with a max | Dev stores use the app free. Live stores see your pricing page right after install and subscribe. |
| 3. Straight to subscription, with a high max | Every install goes to a paid subscription with a high max fee. |
It can. Shopify rewards apps that offer a free plan with a bump in search placement, and a free plan can help you collect reviews in the short term. The app still needs a profitable model. Free users are not free for you, and converting them into paying customers is hard.
The first opt-out setup captures the benefit without a real free plan. Placement also moves with your listing copy, which has a strong, immediate effect on position. That is our Shopify app store SEO and AEO work.
Some Shopify apps keep one. If yours does, make it work toward the paid plans:
If you have no real free plan, keep development stores free. Setup 2 above is built on it.
Our Shopify app pricing and monetization optimization settles the model, the main metric and the flow first: opt-out over opt-in, and the max fee in the subscription for usage-based apps. We model every candidate change against your current and past customer and usage data before anything ships. Then we rework the pricing presentation on your listing, the additional pricing options page and inside your app, and support your dev team through implementation.
The largest single-lever result we’ve produced: Shopify MRR from $100K to $450K in 5 months.
Pricing and the funnel ship together in the Full Growth Project. The full method is in Shopify app pricing and monetization best practices. See the Shopify apps we’ve worked with, or book a free Shopify app growth assessment.
Usually an opt-out free trial, with no real free plan. The merchant subscribes to a paid plan to start the trial and is billed when it ends unless they cancel. If the Shopify app charges by usage, the max fee goes in the subscription. With no free plan, development stores stay free.
First Page Sage tracked 86 SaaS companies from Q1 2022 to Q3 2025. Trial to paid was 48.8% for opt-out and 18.2% for opt-in. Opt-in brought more visitors into a trial: 8.5% against 2.5% for opt-out.
Elsewhere, opt-out asks for a card up front, and that is where it loses trial starts. In Shopify, Shopify holds the merchant's card and does the billing, so that friction disappears.
Three. A free plan that includes usage-based charges with a max. Free for development stores, with a pricing page right after install and a max. Or straight to a paid subscription with a high max.
Low usage limits, shown inside the app. Advanced features on paid plans only. Help free users discover premium features. Keep the free plan low-profile on the pricing page, limit its support, and offer a free trial of the paid plans.
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