How do I find out which feature makes people pay?
19 September 2026 · by Nordva, who make Nordva Launch
The short answer
Compare what people who paid did before paying with what people who didn't pay did. Record a handful of key actions as named events tied to each user, match payments to the same users, and look for the action that most payers took and most non-payers didn't. Then confirm it by asking customers what they'd miss most.
Why it matters
Knowing what makes people pay tells you where to put the paywall, what to show new users first, and what to say on your homepage. Guessing wrong puts the limit on something nobody values, so people stay free forever, or on the one thing everyone needs to try the product, so nobody gets far enough to see its value.
Set it up
- Pick five to eight actions that could plausibly matter: created a second project, invited a teammate, used the export, connected an integration, came back three days in a row.
- Record each as a named event, tied to the user’s id.
- Match payments to the same users, by user id or email.
Read it
For each action, compare two groups over the same period:
| Action | Payers who did it first | Non-payers who did it |
|---|---|---|
| Invited a teammate | 7 of 10 | 12 of 150 |
| Used the export | 3 of 10 | 40 of 150 |
(Made-up numbers.) Here, inviting a teammate is common among payers and rare among everyone else; the export is used by many people who never pay. The invite is the stronger signal.
Two cautions:
- Order matters. Count actions taken before the first payment. Payers use more features after paying; that’s not what made them pay.
- Correlation isn’t cause. Teams may both invite and pay because they’re teams. Check the finding before you rebuild around it.
Confirm it by asking
Ask a few paying customers: “What would you miss most if it disappeared tomorrow?” and “What made you decide to pay?” When their answers point at the same action as the numbers, you’ve found it.
What to do with it
- Help every new user reach that action sooner.
- Put the paid limit just past the first taste of it.
- Say it on your homepage, in the customers’ words.
With Nordva Launch
Record each action as a goal (nordva('goal', 'invited-teammate') or data-nordva-goal on a button) and call nordva('identify', …) after signup. With Stripe connected (read-only, every plan), paying customers are traced to the same visitor. On Builder, a contact’s page shows every visit and goal before they paid, which makes the comparison readable one person at a time. Launch doesn’t compute the payer versus non-payer table for you; with a handful of customers, reading their journeys is quicker.
When Launch is the wrong tool
If you have fewer than about ten paying customers, the comparison is too small to trust; ask each customer directly instead, and use the numbers once there are more.
- What makes users upgrade to paid?
- Which features drive conversion?
- How do I know what customers value most?