What % of Paywalls Pre-Select the Annual Plan?
- By Ali Abouelatta
- n = 1,204
- Published
- Updated
- 2 min read
- paywall · pricing · monetization · trials · ux-patterns
Short answer
Among the paywalls in Lazyweb's corpus where a default selection is actually documented, annual is the preselected plan on 70 canonicals versus 57 monthly and 17 weekly — roughly a 4:1 lead over weekly.source[1] Separately, 80 paywalls use explicit 'pre-selected / selected by default' language.source[1] Because vision descriptions rarely record selection state, this is a directional lead among documented defaults, not a corpus-wide percentage.
Where a preselected plan is documented, annual leads at 70 paywalls versus 57 monthly and 17 weekly — a ~4:1 edge over weekly (Lazyweb Research, July 2026).
Bar chart · Canonicals
Canonicals — Documented default breakdown
One block is about 2.9 Canonicals
- Annual / yearly
- 70
- Monthly
- 57
- Weekly
- 17
- Explicit 'pre-selected / default' language
- 80
The finding
When a paywall's default plan is described, annual is the most common preselected option: 70 canonicals describe annual/yearly as selected, versus 57 monthly and 17 weekly.source[1] A separate 80 canonicals use explicit 'pre-selected' or 'selected by default' language for whichever plan is highlighted.source[1] Lifetime-preselected was found on only 3 canonicals and is dropped as too small to report.source[2] The honest framing is a ratio among documented defaults — annual beats weekly roughly 4:1 — not a percentage of all 1,204 described paywalls, because selection state is usually not recorded in the description.source[1]
Documented default breakdown
| Preselected plan | Canonicals |
|---|---|
| Annual / yearly | 70 |
| Monthly | 57 |
| Weekly | 17 |
| Explicit 'pre-selected / default' language | 80 |
Overlapping matches are possible when a description mentions more than one selection state, so treat these as directional counts, not a clean partition.source[1]
How to apply it
Preselecting annual is the observed default-of-choice on documented paywalls, and named examples reinforce it: Quizlet preselects the annual plan as 'best value', Copilot and Wattpad both preselect a discounted annual option, and Persist preselects annual against a lifetime alternative.number[3] If your goal is higher upfront LTV, annual-preselected is the mainstream pattern; if your goal is trial-start rate, a preselected weekly or shorter plan is the minority but still-used alternative (17 documented).source[1]
Caveats
This is a lower bound built from regex over LLM vision descriptions: most paywalls simply do not describe which plan is preselected, so the 70/57/17 counts capture only the subset where selection state was written down.source[1] Do not read these as '70 out of 1,204 paywalls preselect annual' — read them as 'of paywalls where the default is documented, annual leads.'number[4]
Real in-market screens
Screens from real, in-market apps, tracked by Lazyweb Research.
Sincerely1206 × 2622opens the full image 
Breeze1206 × 2622opens the full image 
Halide1206 × 2622opens the full image 
Dropbox1206 × 2622opens the full image
The numbers
| # | Stat | Computed from |
|---|---|---|
| [1] | annual 70, monthly 57, weekly 17 documented defaults; 80 explicit 'pre-selected' language | preselected_plan_default: annual 70, monthly 57, weekly 17, explicit pre-selected language 80 |
| [2] | lifetime-preselected n=3 (dropped) | preselected_plan_default / smallSampleWarnings: lifetime n=3 <8 dropped |
| [3] | named examples: Quizlet, Copilot, Wattpad, Persist preselect annual | qualitative evidence rows: quizlet, copilot, wattpad, persist |
| [4] | 1,204 paywalls with vision descriptions | paywall_universe extraction coverage: 1,204 canonicals with descriptions |
Methodology
Universe: 1,204 mobile paywalls with vision descriptions across ~800 tracked apps. Preselected plan detected by regex pairing selection language with a billing period in LLM vision descriptions. July 2026 pull. Key caveat: descriptions rarely record selection state, so counts are documented-defaults only — a lower bound, not a corpus-wide rate.
Sources
- [1]
Lazyweb Research analysis of documented-default paywalls within 1,204 described screens (~800 tracked apps), July 2026
Preselected plan detected via regex pairing selection words (pre-selected/selected/highlighted) with a billing period in LLM vision descriptions; lower bound because selection state is rarely described.
- [2]
Lazyweb Research analysis of 1,297 canonical paywall screens (~800 tracked apps), July 2026
Named examples drawn from vision-description evidence for Quizlet, Copilot, Wattpad, and Persist.
Source: Lazyweb Research — proprietary analysis of real, in-market app screens. Cite as Lazyweb Research, 2026-07-07.