Improving Free-to-Paid conversion by designing the first onboarding flow
As a product designer, I used heuristic evaluation, data analysis, and competitive research to identify why free users weren't converting and designed the onboarding flow to fix it
Please note, this case study is under Non-disclosure agreement (NDA). The designs shown below are recreated simulations based on the my original decisions and do not reveal actual product details.
Introduction & Challenge
Blockpass is a RegTech company providing digital identity verification solutions for the Web3 and crypto ecosystem. At the time of this project, the platform served ~1.1 million verified users and over 3,000 business clients. The numbers looked strong — but the revenue didn't reflect it.
Most users signed up for the free plan and never upgraded. Among returning users, only ~30% converted to paid within the past 6 months. For new sign-ups, that number dropped to ~20%. The platform had scale, but no mechanism to turn that scale into revenue growth.
Design Goals
Objectives
The core objective was to design an onboarding flow that the product had never had — one that could directly impact the conversion problem identified above. Three goals guided the project:
Increase free-to-paid conversion during onboarding, before users settle into the free plan and lose the motivation to upgrade.
Build first-impression trust and clarity so new users understand what Blockpass offers and why it matters to them before they take any action.
Ship fast with a small team. The solution had to be buildable within the Billing V5 timeline and start collecting user data early.
Success Metrics
To measure the impact of the redesign, we defined the following KPIs:
Free-to-paid conversion rate
Returning users: baseline ~30% → target ~45%
New users: baseline ~20% → target ~40%
Onboarding Completion Rate (Target: ~70%): Ensuring the new flow itself didn't introduce new friction or cause users to abandon midway.
Step-by-Step Drop-off Rate: A diagnostic metric to answer one question: where do users slow down or hesitate? This data would enable targeted iteration after launch.
Together, these metrics helped us balance user experience improvements with business outcomes and assess the effectiveness of our solution.
Define the Problem & Opportunities
Without a proper onboarding flow, Blockpass was losing users at the very first interaction. To understand why, I started with a heuristic evaluation of the existing experience.
Heuristic Evaluation of the Existing Design
At the time, the Admin Console had no onboarding flow. After signing up, users saw a simple welcome screen and were defaulted to the Free plan, with no guidance or direction to reach their "Aha Moment.”
Key Issues Identified on the Welcome Screen
The welcome screen failed on two critical fronts:
No value proposition. Below the "Welcome to Blockpass" heading, there was no description of what the product does or why it matters. Users had just signed up, but still couldn't answer the most basic question: "What can this product do for me?”
Weak and ambiguous CTA. The primary CTA labeled "Start" gave no indication of what users would see or gain by clicking. No context, no motivation to continue.
These were compounded by secondary issues: an illustration unrelated to identity verification (missing the chance to reinforce trust and compliance), and an unnecessary language toggle competing for attention on an already sparse screen.
Old welcome screen
"Dead End" on the Home Screen
But even users who clicked "Start" hit a wall. They landed on the Admin Console home page showing an empty-state table with no onboarding prompts, no tutorial, no suggested next step. Without any direction, users lost the momentum to explore the product's value and perform core actions.
Old home screen
The welcome screen failed to motivate. The home screen failed to guide. Together, they meant the product was abandoning users at the exact moment it needed to prove its value, directly contributing to the low free-to-paid conversion rate.
Data Analysis
The heuristic evaluation showed what was broken in the experience. To understand why conversion stayed low, I dug into the billing and payment dashboard — focusing on returning users over the past 6 months and new sign-ups from the past 2 months still on the Free plan.
The conversion baselines pointed to something deeper than a UX problem:
Returning users: only ~30% upgraded within 6 months
New users: even lower at ~20% within 2 months
I reviewed this data to answer one key question: "What's preventing them from upgrading to a paid plan?"
The answer was structural. Blockpass's Free plan gave users full access to create KYC services and verify their customers. Although the Free plan had usage limits, users could simply create a new account and continue using the service for free. There was no forcing function to upgrade.
The product wasn't giving users a reason to pay — not because the paid features lacked value, but because users never had to confront that value gap.
Competitive Research
To inform design decisions and understand the competitive landscape, I researched other identity verification products, focusing on how they onboarded new business users and what data they collected during the process.
Note: Most competing platforms require sales consultations or enterprise onboarding before granting product access. This analysis was based on their public-facing registration flows, marketing pages, and available documentation.
Blockpass's Existing Flow
Blockpass's existing onboarding was structured simply into two parts: Registration and Welcome.
Registration required users to complete several steps:
Company email
Confirmation code
Password setup
Agreement to Business Terms / Terms of Service / Privacy Policy
2FA setup.
Welcome: a simple welcome screen to begin using the service.
That was it. No questions about company size, industry, use case, or expected verification volume. No profiling, no needs assessment. Users went straight from registration to an empty dashboard.
Competitors
Competitors approached customer acquisition through two models, but both shared the same principle: collect user context early to guide them toward the right plan.
Enterprise/sales-led (Jumio, Trulioo, Entrust) required sales consultations before product access, collecting company size, industry, and compliance needs upfront to recommend a tailored plan.
Self-service with guided onboarding (Sumsub, Veriff) let users sign up directly, but required them to provide company details and select a plan before accessing production features. Free usage was limited to a sandbox environment with a time-bound trial.
Across both models, competitors shared common onboarding patterns:
Collection of user and company information (full name, company name, industry)
Questions about specific needs (services they're looking for, estimated monthly verification volume)
Headlines focused on product strengths or certifications
A "Trusted by..." section showcasing partners and clients to build credibility
Jumio
Sumsub
Veriff
In contrast, Blockpass collected nothing beyond email and password. Users went straight to a free plan with full production access, no profiling, no needs assessment, no plan recommendation.
Key Takeaway
The research revealed that Blockpass was an outlier in the industry.
Every competitor, whether sales-led or self-service, used the first interaction as an opportunity to understand their customers before granting full access. Blockpass skipped this step entirely. While that simplicity had helped acquire a large user base during early growth, it now meant the platform had no foundation for personalized plan recommendations and no natural trigger for users to consider upgrading.
Hypothesis: To increase conversion among free-plan users, Blockpass needed an onboarding strategy that captures user data and needs early on, enabling personalized plan recommendations while still preserving the benefit of a free tier.
This hypothesis directly shaped the design decisions that followed.
Design Approach
Based on insights from the heuristic evaluation, data analysis, and competitive research, I proposed a comprehensive onboarding flow for the Admin Console. The approach followed a three-stage framework: Capture needs → Show value → Guide action.
1. Design a Comprehensive Onboarding Flow
A multi-step onboarding survey, not progressive profiling.
Blockpass's registration collected zero user context. I considered collecting data gradually over time (progressive profiling), but dropped it — the best chance to convert users is during onboarding, before they settle into the free plan. Waiting to collect context would mean waiting to upgrade them. The survey had three jobs:
Showcase product value and reduce friction on first contact through a fast-start experience with simple, clear steps (reduce Cognitive Load)
Collect user needs and business information to enable personalized plan recommendations
Apply question patterns similar to competitors' onboarding flows to meet user expectations
The intent was not to replicate competitor flows, but to adopt familiar patterns that reduce friction and help users feel confident from the first step
2. Introduce a Personalized Paywall
A personalized paywall, not a generic pricing page.
Users weren't recognizing the value of paid plans because they never had a reason to look. A generic pricing page would have been faster to design, but it would repeat the existing problem which users scanning prices without any frame of reference for their own needs.
Instead, I designed a dynamic paywall that adapts based on the user's survey responses:
Show users that Blockpass understands their purpose and genuinely offers features to help
Present a clear, personalized upgrade path based on their stated needs
Maintain the free plan experience to create a sense of ownership, which increases the likelihood of future conversion (Endowment Effect)
By presenting a recommendation based on what users just told us about their needs, the upgrade path feels tailored rather than pushy.
3. Simple Getting-Started Checklist on the Home Screen
A visual checklist on the home screen, not a tooltip tour.
The old home screen was a dead end that left users with no clear next step. I replaced it with visual checklist cards that give users direction from the start:
Help users get started with the product through guided tasks
Reduce support tickets from confused first-time users
Encourage independent product exploration, building momentum toward completing core actions (Zeigarnik Effect)
Solutions
Planning: Information Architecture & User flow
I mapped the full journey first, from sign-up through the onboarding survey, paywall, and into the home screen, to make sure each step connected logically and that the personalized recommendations had the data they needed at the right moment. That upfront mapping also helped surface sequencing problems early, before they became layout problems in Figma.
Information Architecture & User flow to mapped out the end-to-end journey
Onboarding
After signing up, the first three steps collect business info and service preferences before recommending a plan (Step 1, 2 & 3)
Plan selection with a detailed feature comparison, and billing information (Step 4 & 5)
New Home Screen
The new home screen replaces the old empty table with two things: a Getting-Started checklist to guide first-time users through the setup steps, and an at-a-glance overview of their applicant data. Users arriving after onboarding know exactly what to do next.
Results & Impact
This onboarding design was part of Billing V5 — a major initiative to restructure service pricing and the entire billing system for the Admin Console. As the sole Product Designer, I owned the design end-to-end, from research through final handoff, delivering ~40 screens over two months. Before this project, Blockpass had no onboarding flow, no way to understand user needs, and no upgrade path in the product. The redesign addressed all three gaps: a structured onboarding survey, a personalized paywall, and a guided home screen.
What Shipped
After I left, the team brought the Plan & Pricing page, upgrade and downgrade flows, free plan cases, and the new Home screen with the Getting-Started checklist into production. The onboarding survey flow hasn't been implemented yet — the company entered a restructuring phase that shifted priorities. Due to NDA constraints, I can't share post-launch metrics.
What I can say is this: a product that used to drop users into an empty dashboard with no direction now has a clear path from sign-up to plan selection. That's the foundation the conversion problem needed.
Collaboration
I was the only designer. Six-plus products. No research budget. That was the reality.
So I got resourceful: behavioral data from the billing dashboard, competitors' public-facing flows, and sprint reviews as a feedback loop. I worked closely with the CTO/PM on goals and metrics, developers on feasibility and GA tracking, and the Ops team on recurring customer pain points that shaped onboarding priorities.
Next Steps I Left Behind
I didn't just hand off screens. I left the team with an iteration playbook tied to each KPI:
If onboarding completion drops below 70%: Review step-by-step drop-off data — likely candidates are the needs survey or the paywall step.
If free-to-paid conversion doesn't improve: Revisit the plan recommendation logic and survey-to-plan matching.
If support tickets remain high: Reorder or expand the Getting-Started checklist based on OPs team feedback.
Reflection
What worked
Using data I already had access to, including the billing dashboard, competitor public flows, and feedback from the Ops team about recurring customer pain points, was the right call given the constraints. It wasn't a replacement for real user research, but it was enough to back up the design decisions with evidence instead of opinions.
What I'd do differently
The core assumption behind this project, that collecting user needs during onboarding would lead to good plan recommendations, was never validated with real users. The survey-to-plan matching logic was shaped by competitive patterns and stakeholder input, which gave it a solid foundation but not certainty. If I could redo this, I'd push to run usability testing on the onboarding prototype before handoff, specifically on whether the survey captured the right signals for plan matching. No amount of competitive research can replace watching real users go through it and seeing where the logic breaks down.
What I learned as a sole designer
Being the only designer across 6+ products forced me to be careful about where to spend design effort. This project taught me that the biggest risk isn't making the wrong design choice, it's spending weeks on a choice that hasn't been tested. Next time, I'll protect time for at least one round of prototype testing, even if it means shipping fewer screens. A leaner scope with validated assumptions is a better outcome than a polished design built on guesswork.
