About this chart

The Subscription Activations chart counts how many users enter a given subscription segment for the first time during a given period. The definition of "activation" depends on the segment you select — it can be the start of a free trial, the start of a paid intro offer, or the first full-price payment. It gives you a clear, day-by-day (or week-by-week, month-by-month) view of acquisition volume so you can spot trends, measure campaign impact, and compare acquisition channels.

This chart is distinct from the "New" column in the Paid Subscriptions Movements chart. Paid Subscriptions Movements only tracks subscriptions that have generated a payment -- free trials are excluded until they convert. Subscription Activations counts first-time entries into the selected segment, which — depending on the segment — may occur before any payment is processed (e.g. a free trial start).

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Important: Accuracy depends on subscriber history import

Purchasely identifies an activation as a first-time subscription for a given user. To do so accurately, Purchasely needs the complete subscription history of your users — including lapsed subscribers — to be imported into the platform.

If this full import has not been performed, Purchasely may not know that a user previously held a subscription and could count a reactivation as a new activation, leading to higher activation numbers than expected.

This is the most common reason for discrepancies between Purchasely's activation metrics and the ones reported by the App Store or Google Play, which by definition have the complete transaction history for every user. To ensure accurate activation tracking, please make sure you have completed the historical subscriber import before relying on this metric.

You can choose the segment you're interested in. An activation is counted the first time a user enters the selected segment:

• All activations - the first time a user starts any subscription (free trial, paid intro offer, or full-price)
• Free Trials only - the first time a user starts a free trial
• Paid Intro Offers only - the first time a user starts a paid introductory offer
• Full-price Subscriptions only - the first time a user pays full price (whether the subscription started directly at full price, or after a trial / intro offer converted)

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The same subscription can appear in different segments at different dates.

For example, a user who starts a free trial in January and converts to full price in February will count as an activation in January under "All activations" and "Free Trials only", and as an activation in February under "Full-price Subscriptions only".

⚠️ Change from dashboard v1: counting subscriptions, not subscribers

The previous version of this dashboard counted unique subscribers (users). Dashboard v2 now counts unique subscriptions, each identified by a unique subscription ID.

This changes the numbers in two ways:

• Restored subscriptions across devices: In v1, when a subscription was restored on a new device by a different anonymous user, it was counted multiple times — once for each anonymous user associated with it. In v2, the subscription is counted only once regardless of how many devices or anonymous users it passes through.
• Multiple subscriptions per user: In v1, a user holding two active subscriptions simultaneously was counted once (one user). In v2, each subscription is counted individually, so the same user contributes two to the total.

Example: Alice holds both a monthly Music plan and a yearly Premium plan. In v1, Alice counted as 1 subscriber. In v2, she counts as 2 active subscriptions. Conversely, if a single subscription was restored across 3 anonymous devices in v1, it appeared as 3 subscribers — in v2 it correctly counts as 1 subscription.

How to read the chart

The chart is a bar chart with two overlaid lines.

Below the chart, a data table lists each time period with its corresponding activation count. You can toggle between chart and table views.

When the trend line sits above the average line, acquisition is accelerating. When it dips below, acquisition is slowing down.

Controls

Segments

Filter by the type of subscription activation:

Grouped by

Break down the activations by a dimension to compare segments side by side:

Granularity

Use the Daily / Weekly / Monthly selector to control the time resolution.

• Daily -- One bar per day. Best for spotting short-term spikes or drops (e.g., after a campaign launch).
• Weekly -- One bar per week. Good for smoothing out day-of-week noise while keeping reasonable detail.
• Monthly -- One bar per month. Best for long-term trend analysis and executive reporting.

Filters

Click Filters to narrow the data. You can combine multiple filters.

Common use cases

• Measure the impact of a new paywall -- Launch a new paywall screen, then filter by Screen or use the Grouped by Screen dimension to compare activation volumes before and after the change.
• Compare acquisition channels -- Use the Show dropdown to isolate Free Trials, Paid Intro Offers, or Full-price Subscriptions. The Full-price segment is especially useful for understanding when users actually start paying — it counts the first full-price payment, including trial and intro offer conversions. If most activations come from free trials, your acquisition funnel is trial-dependent; if full-price activations are growing, your value proposition is converting effectively.
• Evaluate a marketing campaign -- Look for a spike in activations on the day a campaign launches. Filter by Campaign or Placement to attribute the lift to a specific initiative.
• Spot platform differences -- Group by Platform to see whether iOS or Android drives more activations. Consistent gaps may indicate platform-specific paywall optimization opportunities.
• Understand payment method distribution -- Group by Payment types to see the share of activations coming from standard purchases vs. promo codes or other methods. A high share of promo code activations may signal over-reliance on discounts.
• Track seasonal patterns -- Switch to Monthly granularity and look at multi-month trends. Subscription apps often see activation spikes around holidays, back-to-school periods, or New Year resolutions.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as an "activation"?

An activation is the first time a user enters the selected segment. The moment it is counted depends on which segment you are viewing:

This means the same subscription can appear in different segments at different dates. For example, a user who starts a free trial in January and converts to full price in February will count as an activation in January under "All activations" and "Free Trials only", and as an activation in February under "Full-price Subscriptions only".

Why might activation numbers differ between Purchasely and the app stores?

Purchasely identifies an activation as a first-time subscription for a given user. To do so accurately, it needs the complete subscription history of your users — including lapsed subscribers — to be imported into the platform. If this full import has not been performed, Purchasely may not know that a user previously held a subscription and could count a reactivation as a new activation, leading to higher activation numbers than expected. The app stores (App Store Connect, Google Play Console), by definition, have the complete transaction history for every user and will therefore always reflect the accurate split between activations and reactivations.

Why are activation numbers on Android less accurate than on iOS?

The App Store provides an API that allows fetching the full transaction history for any user, including lapsed subscriptions. This makes it possible to import your complete iOS subscriber base into Purchasely and accurately distinguish activations from reactivations. Google Play, however, does not expose lapsed subscription history through its APIs. If a user's previous subscription expired before they were known to Purchasely, there is no way to retrieve that past transaction. Purchasely will then count their next subscription as a new activation rather than a reactivation. This is a Google Play platform limitation, not a Purchasely one. In practice, activation metrics on Android may be slightly overstated compared to iOS, where full history import is possible.

How is this different from the "New" count in Paid Subscriptions Movements?

Paid Subscriptions Movements tracks subscriptions that have entered a paid state. Free trials are not included in the "New" count of that chart until the trial converts to a paid subscription. Subscription Activations counts the first time a user enters the selected segment — which, for the "All activations" segment, includes free trials at their start date. Use Activations to measure acquisition volume across all entry points, and Paid Subscriptions Movements to measure paying subscriber growth.

Why do weekly totals not match the sum of daily totals?

When using Daily granularity, each bar represents a single day. Weekly bars aggregate an entire week. Due to how time boundaries are aligned (weeks start on Monday), partial weeks at the beginning or end of the selected date range may cause slight differences when you manually sum daily values and compare them to weekly values. This is normal behavior.

What is the "Payment types" dimension and why is it only available here?

The Payment types grouping dimension lets you break down activations by how the subscription was paid for -- for example, standard in-app purchase, promo code redemption, or offer code. This dimension is specific to the Subscription Activations chart because it is most relevant at the point of acquisition, where understanding the payment method helps assess the quality and source of new subscribers.

Can I see activations for a specific A/B test variant?

Yes. Click Filters, then select the A/B test you want to analyze. The chart will show only activations from users enrolled in that test. To compare variants, apply the filter for each variant separately and compare the resulting volumes and trends.

Why did activations spike but revenue did not increase?

This typically happens when the spike comes from free trial starts or deeply discounted intro offers. Use the Show dropdown to isolate "Free Trials only" -- if that segment accounts for the spike, the revenue impact will only appear later, when those trials convert to paid subscriptions.