How Clear30 Tested App-to-Web Payments Without Losing Conversion with Helium
6min Read
Most apps that try app-to-web see conversion drop. Clear30 used Helium to test a Stripe-powered web checkout that matched Apple's conversion — and increased LTV by 7%.
Thatcher Clough
Cofounder, Clear30
Context
Clear30's mission
Clear30 is an app built to help people quit weed. It's a personal, sometimes difficult journey — and Clear30 gives users the structure and support to get through it. The app had found strong traction, with users engaging daily and building real habits around sobriety.
Like a lot of subscription apps, the Clear30 team had been watching the app-to-web movement closely. The idea of bypassing Apple's 15–30% commission by routing users to a web checkout was incredibly appealing. But for years, it felt futile.
Why app-to-web has never worked
For as long as app-to-web payments have existed, the conversion drop has killed the economics. You save 30% on Apple's commission, but you lose 30% or more on conversion. Users hit a web checkout, encounter friction — a new environment, extra steps, a different payment experience — and they drop off. The math never works. You end up net negative.
Clear30 had seen this firsthand. Previous attempts at app-to-web flows resulted in conversion drops so steep that the commission savings didn't come close to making up the difference. It wasn't worth it. The team had essentially written it off.
This has been the story across the entire mobile industry. Everyone knows Apple's commission is a massive tax on their business. Everyone wants to find a way around it. And almost no one has been able to do it without destroying their subscription flow in the process.
Testing app-to-web with Helium
When Clear30 started working with Helium, the team decided to give app-to-web another shot. Helium made it easy to set up a clean A/B test — identical paywalls, randomized users, one group going through Apple's in-app purchase and the other routed to a web checkout.
The setup was straightforward. No complex engineering, no months of development. The team was able to get the experiment live quickly and start collecting real data on how the web flow performed against Apple's native experience.
They also built in a fallback: if a web payment failed, the user automatically saw Apple's standard purchase flow. No lost conversions, no broken experience. The failure rate was just 2.4%, and every case was caught seamlessly.
The results: conversion held, and LTV actually went up
This is where Clear30's story breaks from everything the industry has come to expect.
Paywall conversion was effectively identical between Apple and the web checkout. The web flow didn't tank conversion. It didn't introduce meaningful friction. Users converted at the same rate regardless of how they paid.
Trial start rate was actually slightly higher on the web flow. And overall, Clear30 saw a 7% increase in Trial LTV. The improvement showed up downstream — in how users engaged after starting a trial — not just in the initial conversion.
That's worth repeating: even if you completely ignore the commission savings, the web flow outperformed Apple's native experience on LTV. This isn't a trade-off where you sacrifice conversion to save on fees. The economics genuinely improved.
Clear30 is on Apple's Small Business Program at 15% for now. Every transaction processed through the web checkout means that full 15% goes back to Clear30 — on top of the 7% LTV gain.
"Proceeds are up a lot. We are on the 15% Apple plan, but still a big difference."
After seeing the results, the team rolled the web flow out as widely as possible.
A new frontier for mobile subscriptions
For years, the mobile subscription industry has been defined by a simple, painful reality: Apple takes a significant cut of every dollar you earn, and there's nothing you can do about it. App-to-web was supposed to be the answer, but the conversion drop always made it a losing bet.
Clear30's results suggest that's no longer the case. With the right experience, app-to-web doesn't just preserve conversion — it can actually improve LTV. No conversion loss, higher lifetime value, and no Apple commission. That's not a trade-off. That's a straight upgrade.
This is a big deal for the entire mobile ecosystem. If app-to-web can work without sacrificing performance, it changes the economics of every subscription app on the App Store. The 15–30% that's always gone to Apple can go back into building better products, reaching more users, and growing faster.
We're still early, but the results are real. And for an industry that's been suppressed by this fee for over a decade, this feels like the beginning of something genuinely new.
