> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.highailabs.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Revenue Projections

> Milestone-based revenue projections for the Guest / Free / Pro launch model — realistic funnel assumptions, stage-gated scenarios, a worked Year-1 model, and sensitivity analysis on churn and trial conversion.

<Note>
  **Status:** Decided — July 3, 2026 (rebuilt on realistic assumptions)
  **Model of record:** [Pricing Strategy](/planning/pricing/strategy). Tiers and prices here follow that page: Guest / Free / **Pro $12.99/mo, $99.99/yr, 7-day trial**. Studio is v4.0 and is **not** in any Year-1 number below.
  **Companion docs:** [Rollout Plan](/planning/pricing/rollout-plan) | [Personas & Journey](/planning/pricing/personas-journey)
</Note>

## Where we actually are

Every projection starts from the real baseline, not an imagined one:

| Fact               | Value                                                                      |
| ------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| App status         | **Pre-launch** (staging / TestFlight; purchases not yet proven end-to-end) |
| Current revenue    | **\$0**                                                                    |
| Website traffic    | **\~10 visitors/day** (\~300/mo)                                           |
| Researched strains | **2,500+** (2,525 as of July 2026)                                         |
| Paid subscribers   | 0                                                                          |

<Warning>
  **What this page replaces.** Earlier drafts projected month-by-month revenue from 200–12,000 installs/mo, an 8% direct install-to-paid rate, 3%/2% monthly churn, and a \$149K Founders lifetime sellout at launch. None of those inputs survive contact with the baseline above. The old month-by-month tables are deleted, not adjusted — a 36-month monthly forecast is false precision at zero revenue. Projections below are **milestone-based**: they describe what each stage looks like and what has to be true to reach the next one.
</Warning>

***

## Assumptions (with benchmarks)

### Pricing

| Product           | Price                          | Notes                                                                                               |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Guest / Free      | \$0                            | Acquisition + habit layer                                                                           |
| Pro Monthly       | \$12.99/mo                     | 7-day free trial                                                                                    |
| Pro Annual        | $99.99/yr ($8.33/mo effective) | 7-day free trial; 36% discount vs monthly                                                           |
| Founders Lifetime | —                              | **Cancelled** — no lifetime products of any kind (founder decision, July 3, 2026); nothing to model |
| Historical Import | Included in Pro (usage-capped) | No separate SKU at launch                                                                           |
| Studio            | —                              | v4.0, 12+ months out; not modeled                                                                   |

### Funnel

| Step                           | Conservative |   Base   |  Stretch | Benchmark / source                                                                                               |
| ------------------------------ | :----------: | :------: | :------: | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Website visitor → install      |      1%      |   1.5%   |    2%    | Content-site→app CTR norms; our site is informational SEO traffic, not app-intent traffic                        |
| Install → trial start          |      8%      |    10%   |    12%   | Freemium apps with a soft paywall + trial (RevenueCat industry data: median \~5–10%, good paywalls 10%+)         |
| Trial → paid                   |      35%     |    40%   |    50%   | 7-day trial industry median ≈ 40% (RevenueCat State of Subscription Apps); assumes trial requires payment method |
| **Net install → paid**         |   **\~3%**   | **\~4%** | **\~5%** | Product of the above; consistent with "top-quartile freemium" — anything above 5% is exceptional                 |
| Monthly churn (months 1–6)     |      8%      |    7%    |    6%    | New consumer subscription apps churn hard early; 5%/mo is the goal state, not the starting state                 |
| Monthly churn (goal, post-PMF) |      6%      |    5%    |    5%    | —                                                                                                                |
| Annual mix                     |      25%     |    30%   |    35%   | Pushed via paywall default + discount framing                                                                    |

<Note>
  These replace **every** instance of the old assumptions: 8% direct install→paid (no trial), 2–3% monthly churn, 30% signup-wall capture, and 15% Pro→Studio upgrades. Those numbers had no supporting data and in several cases contradicted the doc's own cited benchmarks.
</Note>

### Unit economics (per subscriber)

Full worked examples in [Pricing Strategy](/planning/pricing/strategy). Summary:

| Case                                | Net contribution / Pro Monthly sub / mo |
| ----------------------------------- | :-------------------------------------: |
| Apple standard 30% (Year 1, no SBP) |                 \~\$6.07                |
| Apple Small Business Program 15%    |                 \~\$8.02                |

Includes RevenueCat \~1%, AI cost cap ≤\$2.50/user/mo, and a 2–5% refund leak. **Apple's cut is 30% in each subscriber's first year unless SBP enrollment is confirmed — enroll immediately, but never model 15% flat in Year 1 without that caveat.** Apple refunds are discretionary (no guaranteed window); the 2–5% leak line covers them.

***

## Stage-based projections

Rather than pretending to know Month 14's MRR, we gate projections on milestones. Each stage lists the conservative / base / stretch outcome and the condition to advance.

### Stage 0 — Prove the machine (pre-launch, now)

Revenue: **\$0 by definition.** The work is [Rollout Plan Phase 0](/planning/pricing/rollout-plan): sandbox purchases, restore, webhooks, TestFlight paid beta. No revenue projection is meaningful until a stranger can give us money.

### Stage 1 — Launch → first 100 subscribers

|                                                         |      Conservative      |      Base      |     Stretch    |
| ------------------------------------------------------- | :--------------------: | :------------: | :------------: |
| Downloads needed (at net install→paid)                  |         \~3,300        |     \~2,500    |     \~2,000    |
| Time to 100 subs (at current traffic + launch push)     | 12+ months / may stall |   6–12 months  |   3–6 months   |
| MRR at 100 subs (blended at 25% / 30% / 35% annual mix) |        \~\$1,180       |    \~\$1,160   |    \~\$1,140   |
| Net revenue/mo (Apple 30% / SBP 15%)                    |     \~$530 / ~$710     | \~$515 / ~$690 | \~$500 / ~$670 |

<Note>
  Net revenue derives strictly from the per-subscriber contributions above: monthly subs net \~$6.07 (30% cut) / ~$8.02 (SBP), annual subs net \~$3.00/mo (30%) / ~$4.25/mo (SBP) after Apple, RevenueCat, the AI cost cap, and refund leak. A higher annual mix *lowers* monthly-equivalent revenue but front-loads cash and cuts churn — which is why the stretch column shows less MRR, not more.
</Note>

**Advance when:** 100 paying subs AND trial→paid ≥ 35% AND month-3 churn trending under 8%. **The binding constraint is traffic** — at \~300 visitors/mo, organic alone yields roughly 3–9 installs/mo. Reaching Stage 1 in any reasonable time requires the launch marketing push (App Store featuring attempts, Reddit/content, share-card loop) to multiply installs well beyond what the website alone provides.

### Stage 2 — 100 → 1,000 subscribers

|                                                               |    Conservative    |    Base    |              Stretch             |
| ------------------------------------------------------------- | :----------------: | :--------: | :------------------------------: |
| Monthly installs required                                     | \~2,000+ sustained |   \~1,500  | \~1,000 with improved conversion |
| MRR at 1,000 subs (blended, same annual-mix logic as Stage 1) |     \~\$11,800     | \~\$11,600 |            \~\$11,400            |
| ARR run-rate                                                  |      \~\$142K      |  \~\$139K  |             \~\$137K             |

**Advance when:** a repeatable acquisition channel exists with known cost, churn ≤ 6%, annual mix ≥ 30%. This is the stage where creator/influencer-partnership spend math (gifting and sponsorship cost per install vs the \~\$95–115 net LTV from [Personas & Journey](/planning/pricing/personas-journey)) first becomes decidable. Paid ads are never part of that math — no paid ads, period (founder decision).

### Stage 3 — Scale (1,000+ subs)

Only at this stage do the old doc's ambitions (creator partnerships at scale, $1M ARR talk, Studio/v4.0 monetization) become legitimate planning topics. $1M ARR requires \~7,000–7,500 Pro subscribers at the blended ARPU — roughly 200,000+ cumulative installs at base-case conversion. That is a Series-of-decisions away, not a Year-1 line item.

***

## Worked Year-1 model

A concrete, honest Year 1 given a real launch push on top of current traffic:

| Input                                            |   Conservative  |       Base      |       Stretch       |
| ------------------------------------------------ | :-------------: | :-------------: | :-----------------: |
| Year-1 downloads                                 |      1,000      |      2,000      |        3,000        |
| Net install → paid                               |        3%       |        4%       |          5%         |
| Gross subscribers added                          |        30       |        80       |         150         |
| Retained at Dec (after 6–8%/mo churn on cohorts) |       \~20      |       \~55      |        \~110        |
| **Subscribers at Year-1 exit**                   |   **\~20–40**   |   **\~55–80**   |    **\~110–120**    |
| **MRR at Year-1 exit** (blended \~\$11.60/sub)   | **\~\$250–470** | **\~\$640–930** | **\~\$1,280–1,400** |
| Year-1 cumulative gross revenue                  |     \~\$2–4K    |     \~\$5–8K    |      \~\$10–15K     |

**Year-1 exit expectation: roughly 20–120 subscribers and \$250–1,400 MRR.** That does not pay for the company — Year 1's actual deliverables are a proven funnel (real trial→paid and churn numbers), a working share-card loop, and clean unit economics. Revenue is the instrument reading, not the goal.

<Note>
  **Deliberately excluded from the base case:** Studio revenue (v4.0), AI-media add-ons, the [AI Copilot](/planning/pricing/ai-copilot) uplift hypothesis, B2B/dispensary tiers, family plans, and any Founders/lifetime products (cancelled — no lifetime products of any kind, founder decision July 3, 2026). If any of the deferred items materialize they are upside, not plan.
</Note>

***

## Sensitivity: churn × trial→paid

MRR at Year-1 exit for the **base traffic case (2,000 downloads, 10% install→trial)**:

|                 | Trial→paid 30% |   40%   |    50%    |
| --------------- | :------------: | :-----: | :-------: |
| **Churn 5%/mo** |     \~\$650    | \~\$900 | \~\$1,150 |
| **Churn 7%/mo** |     \~\$550    | \~\$750 |  \~\$950  |
| **Churn 9%/mo** |     \~\$450    | \~\$600 |  \~\$800  |

Two readings:

1. **Trial→paid is the highest-leverage lever pre-scale.** Moving 30%→50% (paywall quality, onboarding, first-Notebook moment in the trial week) is worth more than any churn improvement at this size.
2. **Churn compounds later.** At Stage 2+, each churn point is worth thousands of dollars of MRR; this is why the win-back/dunning work in [Rollout Plan Phase 2](/planning/pricing/rollout-plan) matters even though it's irrelevant at 40 subs.

If trial→paid comes in **below \~30%** for two consecutive cohorts, that is the trigger to run the rejected no-trial Option B as an A/B test (see [Pricing Strategy — rejected alternatives](/planning/pricing/strategy)).

***

## What would make the old aggressive case real

The retired draft projected \$919K gross in Year 1. For the record, that world requires **all three** of:

1. **Traffic ×100.** \~12,000 installs/mo implies on the order of a million visitors/mo of app-intent traffic — versus \~300/mo today. That is earned only through viral TikTok organic reach, creator/influencer partnerships at scale, and compounding SEO — there is no paid-ads shortcut (no paid ads, period — founder decision, independent of platform policy).
2. **Proven conversion at the top of benchmark ranges.** Sustained 5%+ net install→paid and sub-5% churn — numbers we can only earn with data, never assume.
3. **Capital.** Creator/influencer-partnership spend (gifting, sponsorships) at a $5–15 effective CAC only pencils once LTV is demonstrated (~$95–115 net); funding tens of thousands per year of partnership budget before that is burning savings on an unproven funnel. Paid ads are not the lever at any stage — no paid ads, ever (founder decision).

Also retired with it: the **\$149K Founders sellout** (600 lifetime units assumed sold into an audience of \~10 visitors/day) and 15% flat Apple economics in Year 1. If milestones in Stages 1–2 are hit ahead of schedule, this section is the checklist for responsibly re-opening the aggressive case.

***

## Dashboard once live

| Metric                            | Target                  | Concerning                          |
| --------------------------------- | ----------------------- | ----------------------------------- |
| Install → trial start             | ≥ 10%                   | \< 6%                               |
| Trial → paid                      | ≥ 40%                   | \< 30% (triggers Option B A/B test) |
| Net install → paid                | 3–5%                    | \< 2%                               |
| Monthly churn (by cohort month 3) | ≤ 7%                    | > 9%                                |
| Annual mix                        | 25–35%                  | \< 20%                              |
| Refund leak                       | 2–5% of gross           | > 7%                                |
| AI cost per Pro user              | ≤ \$2.50/mo             | > \$4/mo (tighten caps)             |
| Apple SBP enrollment              | Confirmed before launch | Not enrolled at launch (model 30%)  |

***

## Related

* [Pricing Strategy](/planning/pricing/strategy) — Model of record, unit economics, rejected alternatives
* [Rollout Plan](/planning/pricing/rollout-plan) — Phase 0 purchase-proof through Studio v4.0
* [Personas & Journey](/planning/pricing/personas-journey) — Who converts, and LTV assumptions
* [Tier Comparison](/planning/pricing/tier-comparison) — Canonical feature-by-tier matrix