Trial-to-Paid Conversion Rate
The share of trials that become paying customers — the sharpest read on whether your trial proves its value.
What is it?
Trial-to-Paid Conversion Rate is the share of trials that turn into paying customers within a set window — typically thirty days. It is the sharpest read on whether your trial actually demonstrates value before it expires.
It sits downstream of trial starts and upstream of new MRR, so it is where a leaky funnel does the most damage: doubling trials does nothing if the conversion rate halves. Measured by cohort, it also tells you whether product and onboarding changes are landing.
How to calculate?
Divide the number of trials that converted to paid within the window by the number of trials that started in the same cohort. Sixty conversions from two hundred trials is a 30% trial-to-paid rate. Fix the window and hold it constant, or you cannot compare cohorts.
Watch it as a cohort curve rather than a blended average — a change to the trial length or onboarding shows up in new cohorts long before it moves the overall number.