Ep 240: The science and psychology behind app onboarding flows

Nicolas Tissier, co-founder and CPO of Purchasely, has spent years optimizing subscription app journeys. He says that the real onboarding window starts at the ad click and doesn’t end until the product becomes a habit. In this episode, Nicolas breaks onboarding down into three stages - intent, value, and habit. He explains why the first session matters so much, how emotional and social values can outperform feature-led messaging, and why more screens can sometimes improve conversion when they create positive rather than negative friction. He also unpacks the growing Web2App challenge, including how to preserve purchase context after a web subscription, avoid forcing paid users through redundant onboarding or paywalls, and build a cleaner handoff that supports conversion and retention.
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Questions addressed in this episode
- What does onboarding mean to you?
- What are the three stages of app onboarding, and which teams should own each one?
- Where do apps lose the most users during the onboarding journey?
- How much time do app publishers have to prove it’s providing the desired job-to-be-done?
- Why can adding more onboarding screens sometimes improve conversion?
- How has Apple’s ATT framework contributed to the growth of Web2App acquisition?
- Where do subscription apps lose users when moving them from a web funnel into the app?
- How can marketers create a smoother handoff for users who have already subscribed on the web?
- Which apps have onboarding experiences worth studying?
Timestamps
- 01:09 — Introducing Nicolas Tissier and Purchasely
- 02:02 — Why Purchasely built no-code tools for faster experimentation
- 03:38 — The three stages of onboarding: intent, value, and habit
- 05:41 — Where apps lose users and why the first session matters
- 07:32 — Communicating progress over product features
- 08:49 — Push-pull anxiety, and inertia in the onboarding journey
- 10:18 — Positive vs. negative friction in onboarding flows
- 11:47 — Why Web2App acquisition grew after Apple ATT
- 13:45 — Converting users on the web before they download the app
- 14:44 — The critical Web2App subscription handoff
- 15:43 — Avoiding redundant onboarding and preserving purchase context
- 16:38 — Apps with onboarding experiences worth studying
- 17:45 — Where to connect with Nicolas and Purchasely
Quotes
- (3:39) “From my perspective, onboarding is everything that happens between the ad click and the moment where the product actually becomes a habit.”
- (5:57) “The average app loses roughly 80% of its users within the first three days. So it's rather at the beginning of the funnel. And if you look at this study, it's almost 90% of the acquired traffic that is gone.”
- (6:30) “When it comes to monetization, the clock runs even faster. From our data, more than 80% of free trials start on the very day of the install. Half of the paid conversions happen the same day, and it's the same for cancellations. When you have three-day free trials, more than half immediately cancel their subscription just out of security. So, you really need to be very good from the beginning.”








