Is your free-to-paid
good, or leaking
MRR?

There is no single good free-to-paid rate, because billed trials and freemium live in different worlds. The Free-to-Paid Calculator grades you against the right band for your model and sizes the MRR waiting in the gap. Billed trials run 25 to 35 percent for good apps; freemium runs 3 to 5 percent for a good no-card tier. Judge yourself against the wrong one and you will either panic or coast. It takes about sixty seconds.

I built it because the most common conversion mistake I see app founders make is comparing themselves to the wrong benchmark. A freemium founder reads that trials convert at 30 percent, sees their own 4 percent, and concludes the app is broken when it is actually healthy. The calculator ends that confusion by putting you next to your real peer group and translating the gap into dollars.

The wrong benchmark
causes the wrong panic.

Free-to-paid conversion is the one app metric founders most often judge against numbers that do not apply to them. A billed trial, where the merchant has entered a card and will be charged unless they cancel, converts a high share of a committed pool. A no-card freemium tier, where merchants can use the app forever without paying, converts a low share of a much wider pool. Both can be excellent. Comparing one to the other is meaningless, yet it happens constantly, and it drives real decisions.

I have built in this ecosystem and advised founders through exactly this confusion. The calculator exists to put you against your own model's band, then show you the prize, the MRR sitting in the gap between where you are and where good looks like for your model.

Two models, two
scorecards.

The calculator first asks which model you run, because that sets the benchmark, then takes your conversion rate, your free signups, and your price to compute the MRR your gap represents. The same 5 percent that is mediocre for a billed trial is strong for freemium, so the model selection is the most important input on the page.

Where your rate
should sit.

Those bands sit on published data, not folklore. ChartMogul's 2026 Conversion Report, built with ProductLed from 200 software products, grades a credit-card trial at 25 to 35 percent for good and 50 to 60 for great, and a standard freemium signup at 3 to 5 and 8 to 12 (ChartMogul, SaaS Conversion Report, 2026).

The gap is almost
always onboarding.

The split is well documented. ChartMogul data shows credit-card trials converting near 31 percent against opt-in trials near 9 percent, while freemium products average in the low single digits (ChartMogul, SaaS Conversion Report, 2026). Same product, different model, a completely different benchmark.

When an app sits below its band, founders reach for pricing and trial-length tweaks. Those rarely move the number, because the people who do not convert are not the ones weighing your price. They are the ones who installed, got lost, never reached the first real win, and quietly left. Fix the path to that first win and conversion moves, because you are converting merchants who would have if they had ever seen the value.

The MRR figure the calculator produces is what makes the work worth prioritising. A two-point conversion lift on a healthy signup base is often a larger, cheaper win than the next acquisition push, because you are monetising demand you already earned. It is the same lesson as the conversion leak on the brand side: the cheapest growth is the visitor, or merchant, you already have.

What it will not
do for you.

It sizes the gap and names the likely cause; it does not fix your onboarding. The MRR number also assumes the new converters retain like your current ones, and merchants pushed over the line by a weak experience can churn faster, which is why this pairs with churn. And it grades against a band, not your specific category, so use judgement: a complex, high-value app may sit healthily below the simple-app benchmark.

What it does is make sure you are measuring against the right peer group and chasing the right lever. Most apps below benchmark have an onboarding problem wearing a pricing costume, and the calculator points you at the real one.

Where it sits in
the toolkit.

Free-to-paid is the top of the revenue funnel, so it connects to everything downstream. The merchants you convert then have to stay, which is why it pairs with the churn cost calculator and the churn benchmarks, since conversion you cannot retain is not worth much. The price you convert them at runs through app pricing strategy, and the full model breakdown is in free-to-paid conversion for Shopify apps.

Common
questions
answered.

What's a good free-to-paid rate for a Shopify app?

It depends entirely on your model. A billed trial converting at 25 to 35 percent is good, and 50 to 60 percent is great. A no-card freemium tier converting at 3 to 5 percent is good, and 8 to 12 percent is great. Comparing a freemium rate to a trial benchmark is the most common way founders misjudge a perfectly healthy app.

Why do Shopify apps convert higher than typical freemium?

Because the audience is pre-qualified. Shopify merchants are already running a business and actively looking to solve a specific problem when they install, so intent is far higher than a typical consumer freemium signup. That higher intent is also why onboarding to the first win matters so much: the merchant came ready to convert if you show value fast.

What's the median free-to-paid conversion rate?

Across SaaS broadly, freemium medians sit in the low single digits and billed trials much higher, but the Shopify-app reality runs at the better end because of merchant intent. The point of the calculator is to compare you to the right band for your model, not to a blended cross-industry median that fits neither. The deeper breakdown is in free-to-paid conversion for Shopify apps.

How do I lift my free-to-paid conversion?

Fix the path to first value. The biggest lever is getting more merchants to the first real win inside the first session, because merchants who never reach value never convert no matter how good your pricing is. Onboarding, setup friction, and time-to-value beat discounting and trial-extension tricks almost every time.

Should my Shopify app use a free trial or freemium?

A billed trial tends to convert a higher share of a smaller, more-committed pool, while freemium casts wider at a lower rate but can build a larger top of funnel. The right choice depends on your value proposition and how quickly a merchant sees the benefit. The calculator works for both, and the strategy is in app pricing strategy.

Stop comparing your app to the wrong number. Grade it against your model's band, see the MRR in the gap, and go fix the onboarding that is almost always the cause. Take the sixty seconds: benchmark your conversion.