Sequence: before → after
Left is the flow as the video frames show it. Right is the rebuild. The art direction is unchanged throughout — same sky, same clouds, same option pills, same card stack, same plan cards, same white paywall CTA, same Home screen. Only the order, and what gets consumed downstream, is different.
KEPTscreen and copy survive as-is
MOVEDsame screen, new position
MERGEDfolded into another step
CUTremoved — zero questions cut
NEWadded
Before8 stops · 1 question · no payoff
1Experience question
“What's your level of experience with meditation?” — the only question in the flow.
2“So are 70% of our members.”
A real answer echo — and the only place the answer is ever used.
3Deck — Better understand your mind
Card stack, Mind & Emotion. Shown before anything is known about the user.
4Deck — Release negative thoughts
Card stack, Mindful CBT.
5Deck — A deeper sense of freedom
Card stack, Veil of Thoughts.
6Deck — A more fulfilling life
Card stack, The Stoic Path.
7Home, locked
Flow ends here. Every session row carries a padlock.
8Paywall — reached by tapping a lock
Two entry points: a locked row, or the crimson banner. Headline “Unlock Waking Up.”
—No offer on close
Closing the paywall returns to a locked Home with nothing offered.
After15 stops · 4 questions · all four consumed
1Welcome + proof
Wordmark, 4.9/43K ratings, Wirecutter pick, “about 60 seconds”.
2Goal question
“What brought you to Waking Up?” Drives deck order, payoff copy and the paywall headline.
3Experience question
Unchanged — same headline, same three options, same order.
4“So are 70% of our members.”
Kept verbatim for the beginner branch; two new branches for the other answers.
5Time question
5 / 10 / 20 minutes. Sets the session length shown on the payoff card.
6Obstacle question
Forget / can't sit still / fall asleep / not sure it's working. Sets the payoff's closing line.
7–10Deck ×4 — unchanged copy, reordered
Same four screens, same headlines and paragraphs. Now placed after the questions, and the deck leads with the card that matches the stated goal.
11Loader
All four answers tick off by name, with the Huberman quote held during the wait.
12Payoff — “Your path is ready”
Goal, experience, minutes and obstacle all reflected back, over the real Day-1 course card.
13Paywall — goal in the headline
Same plan cards, same bullets, same white CTA. Adds proof strip, trial timeline, the savings figure, and promotes the scholarship line.
14Offer paywall on close
30 days free + $20 off annual — Waking Up's own published partner offer.
15Home, locked
Unchanged. Now a re-entry to the paywall rather than the only entry — the crimson banner folds into the flow's single decision point.
Ranked changes
Ordered by expected impact × confidence. Ranges are expected effect, not measured lift.
| # | Priority | Where | Change | Pattern | Expected impact |
|---|
| 1 | Fix first | Seam | The flow asks a question, echoes it once, then hands the user to a locked Home. Nothing personalised exists between the answer and the lock. Add loader → payoff before the paywall. | The broken promise / personalisation loop | CR +10–20% |
| 2 | Fix first | Paywall | Carries no rating, no review count, no testimonial — while the App Store shows 4.9 from 43K ratings and the site claims 100,000+ 5-star reviews. Put the real numbers beside the decision. | Social proof at decision point | CR +10–15%, ARPU +2–5% |
| 3 | High | Flow | The paywall is only reachable by tapping a padlock. Move it to the end of onboarding, immediately after the payoff; keep Home's banner as re-entry. | Paywall placement | CR +10–20% |
| 4 | High | Paywall | Annual shows “$12.50/month, billed at $149.99/yr” next to “$19.99/month” and never states the gap. Add “Save 37% — $89.89 a year vs monthly”, derived from the two prices already on screen. | Annual savings visualisation | CR +5–15%, ARPU +10–15% |
| 5 | High | Close | Closing the paywall offers nothing. Add a second-chance paywall carrying the published partner offer: 30 days free, then $129.99/yr instead of $149.99. | Second-chance offer (onboarding position) | ARPU +10–15% |
| 6 | High | Paywall | “14 days free” is a number with no shape. Draw Today → Days 1–13 → Day 14 as a connected timeline above the plans. | Trial-timeline archetype | CR +8–15% |
| 7 | High | Paywall | Headline “Unlock Waking Up.” is generic while the flow now knows the goal. Make it “Your path to a calmer mind. Unlocked.” | Goal-personalised paywall | CR +15–20% |
| 8 | Medium | Onboarding | The four deck screens run before anything is known about the user. Move them after the questions and lead the stack with the card matching the goal. | Branching / relevance | CR +5–15% |
| 9 | Medium | Paywall | “Waking Up is free for anyone who can't afford it” is the most distinctive trust asset in the category and it sits in 10px grey at the bottom. Promote it to a tappable row above the dock, wording unchanged. | Trust signals near CTA | CR +3–8% |
| 10 | Medium | Onboarding | The question run has no progress cue. Reuse the deck's own four-dot control on the questions instead of inventing a bar. | Progress indication | CR +5–15% |
| 11 | Low | Onboarding | Cold traffic meets a question with no context. Open with the wordmark, the real rating and a 60-second expectation. | Opening screen / time expectation | CR +3–8% |
| 12 | Low | Paywall dock | Move billing terms out of the scroll into a single line under the CTA: “No charge today. 14 days free, then $149.99/yr. Cancel anytime.” | Transparent billing framing | CR +3–8% |
Notes for the conversation
Questions cut: none
The frames show exactly one question — the meditation-experience question — and it is kept verbatim, same headline, same three options, same order, followed by its “So are 70% of our members.” echo word for word. Three questions were added, and every one of them is visibly consumed twice downstream: named on the loader and reflected on the payoff screen. If you want one of the new three dropped, the payoff card loses a line rather than the flow losing a screen.
Where every number comes from
- $19.99/mo, $149.99/yr, $229.99 family — the in-app purchase list on the App Store listing for Waking Up: Meditation & Wisdom.
- 4.9 from 43K ratings, 2025 NYT Wirecutter pick, 2026 App Store “App of the Day” pick — the same App Store listing.
- 100,000+ 5-star reviews and 50,000+ users across 26 countries — wakingup.com.
- 14 days free (annual) / 7 days free (monthly) — read off the in-app paywall in your frames. The website advertises a 7-day trial, so confirm which applies on the US storefront before shipping.
- 30 days free + $129.99/yr (was $149.99, “$20 off Annual”) — wakingup.com/partner/huberman and /partner/tenpercent. A real, standing, published SKU.
- Save 37% / $89.89 — arithmetic on the two prices already on their paywall ($19.99 × 12 = $239.88 vs $149.99). Nothing invented.
- Huberman quote — verbatim from wakingup.com, attributed.
- “minimum of 10% of its profits to highly effective charities” — wakingup.com/foundation.
- Scholarship wording — verbatim from the paywall in your frames.
What I deliberately left out
- A countdown timer on the offer paywall. The 30-day partner offer is a standing one, not a closing window. A ticking clock over it would be invented urgency on a brand whose published position is “no questions asked”.
- A free-vs-paid comparison table. It is the highest-impact paywall pattern in the library and it needs the free tier's actual limits. Waking Up's free state isn't published precisely enough to state honestly, so the screen uses the trial timeline instead.
- A projected outcome. No “sleep 40% better in 4 weeks”. The payoff reflects the answers back — which is real personalisation — rather than modelling a result nobody measured.
- A permission prompt. “Turn Moments On” stays where it is, after the paywall, on Home. Moving notification prompts ahead of the decision point is the classic own-goal.
- Cutting the four deck screens. They repeat one another somewhat, which normally invites a trim — but they are the app's signature control and the strongest thing in the flow. Reordering them by goal pays for their length instead.
What I need from you before this ships
- The real course cover art files. The card stack uses stand-in artwork; the titles and teachers are real, the images are not.
- Which trial applies on the US storefront — 14/7 days as in the frames, or the 7 days the website advertises.
- Whether the 30-day partner offer can be issued in-app as a second-chance SKU, or whether it must stay a web-checkout offer.
- Copy approval on the two new echo branches (“some experience” / “significant experience”). Only the beginner branch is your wording.
- Whether the answers can actually reorder the library, or only the onboarding deck. The payoff screen promises the former.
Patterns come from Adapty's teardowns and A/B tests across subscription apps; impact ranges are expected effect, not measured lift for this app.