# What % of Paywalls Pre-Select the Annual Plan?

Source: Lazyweb Research
Published: 2026-07-07
Sample size: n=1204
Tags: paywall, pricing, monetization, trials, ux-patterns
HTML: https://www.lazyweb.com/research/what-percent-of-paywalls-preselect-the-annual-plan
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**Answer.** Among the paywalls in Lazyweb's corpus where a default selection is actually documented, annual is the preselected plan on 70 canonicals versus 57 monthly and 17 weekly — roughly a 4:1 lead over weekly.[1] Separately, 80 paywalls use explicit 'pre-selected / selected by default' language.[1] Because vision descriptions rarely record selection state, this is a directional lead among documented defaults, not a corpus-wide percentage.

> Where a preselected plan is documented, annual leads at 70 paywalls versus 57 monthly and 17 weekly — a ~4:1 edge over weekly (Lazyweb Research, July 2026).

## The finding

When a paywall's default plan is described, annual is the most common preselected option: 70 canonicals describe annual/yearly as selected, versus 57 monthly and 17 weekly.[1] A separate 80 canonicals use explicit 'pre-selected' or 'selected by default' language for whichever plan is highlighted.[1] Lifetime-preselected was found on only 3 canonicals and is dropped as too small to report.[2] The honest framing is a ratio among documented defaults — annual beats weekly roughly 4:1 — not a percentage of all 1,204 described paywalls, because selection state is usually not recorded in the description.[1]

## Documented default breakdown

| Preselected plan | Canonicals |
|---|---|
| Annual / yearly | 70 |
| Monthly | 57 |
| Weekly | 17 |
| Explicit 'pre-selected / default' language | 80 |

Overlapping matches are possible when a description mentions more than one selection state, so treat these as directional counts, not a clean partition.[1]

## How to apply it

Preselecting annual is the observed default-of-choice on documented paywalls, and named examples reinforce it: Quizlet preselects the annual plan as 'best value', Copilot and Wattpad both preselect a discounted annual option, and Persist preselects annual against a lifetime alternative.[3] If your goal is higher upfront LTV, annual-preselected is the mainstream pattern; if your goal is trial-start rate, a preselected weekly or shorter plan is the minority but still-used alternative (17 documented).[1]

## Caveats

This is a lower bound built from regex over LLM vision descriptions: most paywalls simply do not describe which plan is preselected, so the 70/57/17 counts capture only the subset where selection state was written down.[1] Do not read these as '70 out of 1,204 paywalls preselect annual' — read them as 'of paywalls where the default is documented, annual leads.'[4]

## The numbers

| Stat | Computed from |
| --- | --- |
| annual 70, monthly 57, weekly 17 documented defaults; 80 explicit 'pre-selected' language | preselected_plan_default: annual 70, monthly 57, weekly 17, explicit pre-selected language 80 |
| lifetime-preselected n=3 (dropped) | preselected_plan_default / smallSampleWarnings: lifetime n=3 <8 dropped |
| named examples: Quizlet, Copilot, Wattpad, Persist preselect annual | qualitative evidence rows: quizlet, copilot, wattpad, persist |
| 1,204 paywalls with vision descriptions | paywall_universe extraction coverage: 1,204 canonicals with descriptions |

## Methodology

Universe: 1,204 mobile paywalls with vision descriptions across ~800 tracked apps. Preselected plan detected by regex pairing selection language with a billing period in LLM vision descriptions. July 2026 pull. Key caveat: descriptions rarely record selection state, so counts are documented-defaults only — a lower bound, not a corpus-wide rate.

## Sources & citations

- [1] Lazyweb Research analysis of documented-default paywalls within 1,204 described screens (~800 tracked apps), July 2026. Preselected plan detected via regex pairing selection words (pre-selected/selected/highlighted) with a billing period in LLM vision descriptions; lower bound because selection state is rarely described.
- [2] Lazyweb Research analysis of 1,297 canonical paywall screens (~800 tracked apps), July 2026. Named examples drawn from vision-description evidence for Quizlet, Copilot, Wattpad, and Persist.

## Related questions

- [How Many Plan Options Do Mobile Paywalls Show — 1, 2, or 3?](https://www.lazyweb.com/research/how-many-plan-options-do-mobile-paywalls-show)
- [What % of Paywalls Mention a Free Trial?](https://www.lazyweb.com/research/what-percent-of-paywalls-mention-a-free-trial)
- [How Many CTAs Does the Median Paywall Have?](https://www.lazyweb.com/research/how-many-ctas-does-the-median-paywall-have)