How to track trial to paid conversion in RevenueCat

Why is trial conversion hard to measure?

Because the obvious calculation is wrong and it looks right.

Take active trials, take active subscriptions, divide. You now have a number that moves, feels meaningful, and answers nothing. The two figures are snapshots of different populations at the same instant, and a trial started today has not had the chance to convert.

Conversion is a cohort question. Of the people who started a trial in a given week, how many were paying when it ended? Answering it needs the start and the outcome tied together, which no single snapshot gives you.

What active trials actually is

A count of free trials running right now, including cancelled ones, until they convert to paid or expire.

Read it as queue depth. Trials doubling means a cohort arrived that will decide, one way or the other, within whatever trial length the store is enforcing. The number falling means they decided, and it does not say which way.

That makes it a genuinely useful leading indicator and a useless conversion rate.

The pair that tells you something

Put active trials next to active subscriptions and watch them together over a trial length.

• Trials fall, subscriptions rise. Conversion.
• Trials fall, subscriptions flat. They left.
• Trials rise, subscriptions flat. The cohort has not decided yet.

That is not a conversion rate, but it is directionally honest, and it is available from one endpoint with no extra work.

Measuring it properly, with webhooks

For a real conversion rate you need the cohort, and that means recording events as they happen.

RevenueCat sends INITIAL_PURCHASE with a period_type that distinguishes a trial start, and then one of several outcomes later.

// Sketch. Store these and the ratio becomes a query rather than a guess.
const OUTCOMES = {
  INITIAL_PURCHASE: "started", // period_type TRIAL
  RENEWAL: "converted", // first renewal after a trial is the conversion
  CANCELLATION: "cancelled", // intent to leave, trial still running
  EXPIRATION: "lapsed", // trial ended without paying
};

CANCELLATION during a trial is the signal people misread. It does not mean the trial ended. It means auto-renew was switched off, and the trial keeps running to its end date. Count it as intent, not as an outcome, or you will report people as lost while they are still using the app.

The conversion rate is then: trials started in week N, divided into those whose first RENEWAL arrived within the trial length plus a grace margin.

Two stores, two clocks

A project shipping to both App Store and Play Store mixes trial lengths, because the trial is configured per store product and the two rarely match exactly. A single blended conversion rate across both is an average of two different experiments.

Split by store before you draw conclusions about a trial length change.

Billing grace periods blur the end

A subscription that converts but whose first payment fails enters a grace period rather than expiring. Depending on where you draw the line, that user converted, or has not yet, or never will.

Pick a rule, write it down, and apply it consistently. The rate matters far less than the rate being comparable to last month's.

In the notch

Notch Metrics reports RevenueCat active trials as a live snapshot of how many are running, beside active subscriptions, MRR and new customers.

It deliberately does not show a conversion rate. A rate computed from two snapshots would be a number that moves convincingly and means nothing, and the real one needs a cohort nobody can derive from a single API call.

Everything RevenueCat reports, or download Notch Metrics.