Kong·Growth

Konnect Plus Trial

Self-serve trial flows that converted enterprise prospects without high-touch sales.

Senior Staff Product Designer · May 2024

Konnect Plus is a core pricing tier for Kong Konnect. Users could trial it before paying, but 68% of them never knew it was available. The ones who did find out wanted it. The product just wasn't telling them.

I redesigned the trial and upgrade experience end-to-end across 2 milestones: a clear 30-day trial with persistent status banners, and a native in-product checkout replacing the Stripe redirect. Delivered over 2 months as Staff Product Designer, Growth.

+17%

Trial upgrades

40%

Fewer trial support requests

The Problem

Only 10% of customers knew they had a trial running. The platform used a hybrid credit-and-time model that most users never understood. When the trial ended, features disappeared and unexpected costs appeared. Support tickets started with phrases like 'I didn't even know I had a trial.' The product had no visible signal that anything was happening.

I analyzed user data focusing on trial awareness and what was preventing conversion. The numbers confirmed the support tickets.

•68% of users wanted the Konnect Plus trial when it was explained to them

•10% of customers knew they were in a trial

•91% of users had no idea about the credit loan system

“

I got an email about my trial expiring? When and who triggered the trial? We didn't realize we had it running and feel like we weren't able to properly use it.

Konnect customer

“

What are all these extra costs? I was looking to upgrade to Konnect Plus but it says I owe money?? Why?

Konnect customer

Competitive Analysis

I reviewed approximately 5 products including direct competitors to understand how they surfaced trial status, upgrade paths, and pricing clarity. Key findings:

•Globalized banners reinstate trial status throughout the product and drive urgency without being disruptive

•Global upgrade CTAs maintain awareness and provide fast routes to convert at the moment users are ready

•What is in a trial should be in a trial. Hidden fees and credit loan systems destroy trust at the worst possible moment

•Pricing breakdowns need to be easy to read and presented before users commit, not after

Competitive analysis — products reviewed

Hypothesis

By redesigning the Konnect Plus trial and upgrade experience we can reduce friction, improve trial clarity, and surface value more effectively. This will lead to increased user confidence, higher activation rates, and significantly improved trial-to-paid conversion.

Goals

User Goals

•Understand trial status, timeline, and what happens when it ends

•Explore Konnect Plus features with confidence, no surprise charges

•Convert to paid when ready through a clear, trustworthy flow

Business Goals

•Increase trial-to-paid conversion by removing confusion and friction

•Reduce support volume by making trial status and pricing self-evident

•Set the standard for all future purchasing and upgrade paths in Konnect

Expanding the Scope

Originally the team wanted to focus only on trial mentions throughout the UI. After reviewing the data and walking through the existing flow, I pushed to go further.

The upgrade flow was handled entirely through Stripe, taking customers completely out of the Konnect experience. Users were not presented with enough information about what they were about to be billed. Rebuilding this natively, alongside updating the billing page, gave us a more complete approach to the conversion problem rather than patching around it.

Milestone 1: Trial Awareness

The first milestone focused on making the trial visible throughout the product. Before this work, users received no in-app indication of their trial status beyond a single email at expiry.

The solution was a persistent global banner that tracked trial progress and surfaced a quick upgrade action at every stage. Alongside this we simplified the trial model itself, replacing the confusing credit-loan system with a clean 30-day period. When the trial ends, it ends. No hidden charges.

•30-day trial duration, clearly communicated from signup

•Credit and loan system removed entirely

•Active alerting campaign in-app and via email at 30 days, 14 days, 2 days, 24 hours, and expiry

Milestone 2: Upgrade Flow

Milestone 2 rebuilt the upgrade experience natively inside Konnect. The previous flow redirected users to Stripe with no pricing context and no continuity with the product they were buying into.

The new flow surfaced transparent pricing, showed exactly what was included at each tier, and kept the entire checkout experience within Konnect. Trial credits were applied as a conversion incentive, giving users a concrete reason to upgrade before expiry rather than after.

Outcomes

Milestone 1 and 2 released July 2024.

+17%

Trial upgrades

40%

Fewer trial support requests

•Set the standard for all future purchasing and upgrade paths within Konnect

•Rapid improvement in trial awareness and self-serve upgrades

•Eliminated negative sentiment around loaned credits

•Upgrade flow rebuilt natively, removing the Stripe redirect entirely

Learnings

The biggest win was pushing to expand the scope. A narrower brief — just adding trial banners — would have improved awareness but left users hitting the same broken upgrade flow. The data made a clear case for doing more, and having the conviction to advocate for that shaped the outcome.

Removing the credit loan system was as much a product decision as a design one. The confusion it created wasn't a communication problem, it was a model problem. Simplifying to a clean 30-day trial removed an entire category of support tickets and gave users a mental model they could actually hold.

The native upgrade flow set a precedent beyond this project. Building it properly the first time meant every future purchasing surface in Konnect had a pattern to follow rather than defaulting to another Stripe redirect.

Back to work