Trial-to-Paid Conversion

Trial-to-Paid Conversion is the share of users who start a free trial and then become paying customers.

You calculate it as paid conversions over trials started in a cohort, watched to the end of the billing window. The single biggest driver is the trial type: opt-out trials, where a card is taken up front and billing starts unless the user cancels, convert far higher than opt-in trials that ask for payment only at the end. The number is meaningless unless you state which model produced it.

Take 1,000 trials. An opt-in trial with no card required might convert around 15 percent to paid. Switch to opt-out with a card at signup and the same product can convert 45 to 60 percent, because inertia now works for you instead of against you.

Opt-out inflates the headline and the refunds. A high opt-out rate includes users who forgot to cancel, so it carries more chargebacks, more early churn, and more support load than the clean number suggests. Judge trial conversion next to month-two retention, not on its own, or you are counting people who never wanted the product.

State the trial type or the rate is noise.