Paywall Builder

paywall-builder

Agent: Growth Engineer

L2 growth engineer (Nx) responsible for growth instrumentation, metrics dashboards, funnel analysis, and growth loop activation.

Department ethos: ideal-data-growth.md

Skill Description

Builds paywall and monetization gate implementations that convert free users to paid plans, including feature gating, upgrade prompts, and payment flow integration.

When to Use

• When the product needs paywall implementation to gate premium features behind paid plans.
• When A/B testing different paywall strategies (hard paywall, metered, feature-gated) to optimize conversion.
• When adding new premium features that require integration with the existing paywall and entitlement system.

Workflow

1. Entitlement Mapping: Map product features to plan tiers (free, pro, enterprise). Define which features are gated, which are metered (usage limits), and which are fully open. Deliverable: entitlement matrix by plan tier.
2. Gate Implementation: Build feature gates that check user entitlements and display appropriate upgrade prompts when users hit limits. Implement both hard gates (feature blocked) and soft gates (usage warnings). Deliverable: feature gating system.
3. Upgrade Flow: Build the upgrade flow: plan comparison, pricing display, payment form integration (Stripe, RevenueCat), and confirmation. Optimize for minimal friction (pre-filled forms, one-click upgrade). Deliverable: working upgrade flow.
4. Instrumentation: Track paywall impressions, upgrade clicks, payment starts, payment completions, and plan changes. Build a paywall performance dashboard showing conversion by feature gate, plan, and user segment. Deliverable: paywall analytics dashboard.
5. Optimization Setup: Implement A/B test infrastructure for paywall variants (copy, timing, placement, pricing). Define the experiment framework and success metrics. Deliverable: A/B test framework for paywall optimization.

Anti-Patterns

• Paywalling before activation: Showing upgrade prompts before users have experienced the product's core value. Why: users who have not reached the aha moment have no motivation to pay; premature paywalls increase churn rather than revenue.
• Hard paywall on discovery features: Blocking features that help users discover the product's value behind a hard paywall. Why: users cannot evaluate what they are paying for, reducing conversion and increasing refund rates.
• No free tier value: Gating so aggressively that the free tier provides no meaningful value. Why: an empty free tier produces no word-of-mouth growth and no upgrade pipeline; free users must get enough value to want more.

Output

On success: Produces a working paywall system with entitlement mapping, feature gates, upgrade flow, and analytics dashboard. Delivered to the Growth Lead with baseline conversion metrics.

On failure: Report which paywall components could not be implemented (e.g., payment provider integration issues, entitlement system limitations), what partial gating exists, and what the revenue impact is. Escalate to Growth Lead.

Related Skills

• onboarding-engineer -- Onboarding flows should demonstrate premium value before paywall exposure.
• funnel-analyser-growth -- Funnel analysis measures paywall conversion and identifies optimization opportunities.