Problems with Splitwise Pro subscription offering and how to fix them?

Lately, Splitwise has been aggressively promoting its Pro subscription in India. They've added numerous paywall triggers to increase the visibility of the Pro subscription. However, the way Splitwise offers Pro memberships is misaligned with how users typically use the app. The monthly subscription costs around ₹150, and without it, you can only add up to 5 transactions per day. Once you hit this limit, you can't add any more transactions until the next day.

Now, let's think about it. Why would a user need to add more than 5 transactions in a day? The most likely scenario is during a trip or maybe a weekend outing with friends. In day-to-day life, making 5 purchases in a single day is rare.

Furthermore, why would everyone in the group need to pay? Even if one person buys the subscription, they can add expenses on behalf of others.

Additionally, why would someone pay ₹150 every month? For most people, Splitwise isn't a tool they use regularly. It's primarily used for trips, where its use might span a week or two at most. There isn't a recurring auto renewing subscription use case that justifies a monthly subscription for the majority of users.

Lastly, ₹150 per month is expensive. Imagine wanting to add one more expense of ₹100, but having to pay a ₹150 subscription fee just to do so. Crazy, right? Splitwise attempts to justify its subscription by offering features like analytics, search, and receipt image uploads. However, these features don't provide a strong enough value proposition to warrant the cost.

What Splitwise can do?

Splitwise should rethink their subscription model. They need to better understand user needs, behaviour, and psychology, and experiment with different offerings. Some experiments that Splitwise should definitely try include:

1. Charge fee for creating and updating a group. One person from the group can pay the fee and whoever pays the fee will have an easy option to split the subscription cost with everyone in the group. As new members are added, the cost per person for buying a group decreases.
2. Offer a one-time payment option alongside recurring plans. This is useful for users without a recurring need(One trip or weekends). The recurring plan could still be there and could be offered at a 25-30% discount.
3. Provide an option to get Pro features for a day or a week. Users can only add/edit transactions in a group if they have paid for that particular day. This is especially useful for trips or weekends.
4. Instead of charging ₹150 per month, introduce micro transactions like ₹20-30 per day per active group. A week-long subscription could cost around INR 100 and monthly can still be priced at ₹150. Many users will end up buying monthly now because of decoy pricing.

These recommendations may or may not be successful. But remember, experimenting with monetisation is just as important as creating a good product that solves a major problem. Monetisation should align with the use case, and the pricing should reflect the value the product provides. In the case of Splitwise, it's clear that the current pro offering isn't appealing and needs to be adjusted.

To accelerate monetisation experimentation and reduce go-to-market time for monetisation strategies from months to minutes, utilise a platform like surgegrowth.io.