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Try before you buy

Updated: Jun 29, 2026

Try Before You Buy (TBYB) allows you to offer users a free trial of your Meta Horizon Store app, ranging from 15 to 30 minutes. This feature can boost user confidence and increase conversions without additional software development.

TBYB overview

When you set up a TBYB, it will run as an experiment if you select an audience size less than 100%. This experiment will end after 30 days or if you disable the feature—whichever occurs first. If you select an audience size of 100%, the TBYB will remain active indefinitely until you disable it manually.

Users may participate in multiple app trials simultaneously, but are limited to one trial per app. They cannot purchase in-app products or downloadable content during the trial, but they can earn and keep achievements.

Key points include:

Disabling TBYB immediately terminates all active trials and prompts users with an upsell dialog to purchase the app.

Re-enabling TBYB does not reset a user’s trial.

Trials begin when users start the app.

Removing the headset or exiting the app pauses the trial, allowing continuation later.

Purchasing the app during the trial lets users resume from where they left off.

Limitations

Currently, TBYB is not available for 2D apps.

TBYB in the Meta Horizon Store

Users can accept a TBYB offer from the Try Before You Buy shelf in the Store or directly from your app’s product details page.

Set up TBYB

Developers with a published Store app can set up TBYB from the app page of the Developer Dashboard under Growth > Try before you buy. There are two types of trials:

Time-based: Easy to set up, lets users try your app for 15-30 minutes. The downside is that you don’t know how much of your app the user completed.

Achievement-based: Lets you end a trial at the exact moment a specific achievement is unlocked. This gives you precise control of when your trial ends, and the user is asked to purchase the app to continue. To set up an achievement-based trial, you first need to implement at least one “simple” achievement in your app using the Platform SDK.

Set up a time-based trial

Use the following steps to create a time-based TBYB offer:

Log on to the Developer Dashboard⁠ and navigate to your app.

Select the Growth tab and then Try before you buy in the sidebar. On the Try before you buy page, select Enable Now.

Select a time-based trial.

Define the parameters of your free trial as follows:

Trial duration: Choose from periods of 15 to 30 minutes in 5-minute increments. Try to set a trial duration that aligns with your app’s gameplay, such as ending the trial at a cliffhanger or stopping point that rewards the audience. For more information, see Maximize your TBYB effectiveness.

Audience: Choose whether to make free trials available to 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of users. Users are selected at random. If this is your first trial, we recommend not setting this higher than 50% until you know that TBYB is having a positive effect on your conversion rate. For more information, see Handling your first free trial.

Select Enable.

Set up an achievement-based trial

Use the following steps to create an achievement-based TBYB offer:

Log on to the Developer Dashboard⁠ and navigate to your app.

Make sure you have an achievement in your app that unlocks where you want your trial to end. If you do not, update your app to add the achievement and republish it to the store.

Select the Growth tab and then Try before you buy in the sidebar. On the Try before you buy page, select Enable Now.

Select an achievement-based trial.

Define the parameters of your free trial as follows:

Achievement: The name of the achievement that will end your trial once it is unlocked. Choose a location in your game, such as a cliffhanger, that will make the user want to purchase your game to continue. For more information, see Maximize your TBYB effectiveness.

Fallback time: Used to end your trial even if the user has not yet unlocked the trial-ending achievement. This can be useful for situations where you think it is possible for users to circumvent your achievement or if you want to ensure a user plays at most a certain amount of time.

Select Enable.

Disable TBYB

You can use the same TBYB page in the Developer Dashboard to disable an active TBYB offer. Disabling immediately ends all free trials for your app for all users, even if they have time remaining in their free trial period.

Handling your first free trial

Consider the first trial you set up as your “initial test period.” This test period is important for determining how TBYB impacts your sales and whether it is a good fit for your app. If the conversion rate with TBYB is not statistically better than without it, your app’s genre or initial game loop might not be optimal for TBYB.

To help mitigate the potential risk of your initial test period:

Restrict your audience size to a maximum of 50%, which will run the TBYB offer for 30 days.

After 30 days, go to the Try Before You Buy page and then select View Analytics to see information regarding the conversion rates with and without TBYB.

If TBYB has had a beneficial effect on your conversion rates, you can consider opening your TBYB offering to up to 100% of users and keeping it running for a longer duration.

View and analyze TBYB statistics

The TBYB analytics available in the Developer Dashboard help you evaluate whether TBYB supports your strategy. After your test period has run, open the Try Before You Buy page and select View Analytics.

How results are calculated

Results are computed by combining your test data with prior outcomes from similar TBYB experiments. This gives you a direct read on how likely your trial is to increase conversion, and it stays reliable even when your experiment has a smaller sample size. The data updates daily.

Summary cards

The summary cards give you an at-a-glance read on your most recent test period:

Trial period start date: The date when the most recent test period started.

Trials started: The number of people who started a free trial of this app during this test period.

Change in conversion rate: The percentage that the conversion rate for this app changed during the test period. This is calculated by dividing the TBYB conversion rate by the original conversion rate, then subtracting 1.

Trial conversion: The percentage of people who started a trial and then went on to purchase the app.

Probability of conversion lift: The probability that the trial increases your app’s conversion rate (purchases per store-tile impression) compared to the no-trial group, based on your test data. A signal label summarizes this read at a glance:

Strong positive signal: The trial is very likely increasing conversion.

Moderate signal: The trial shows a positive effect, with less certainty.

Weak or negative signal: The trial is unlikely to be increasing conversion.

Awaiting data: There is not yet enough trial activity to produce a signal.

Estimated total purchase value lift: The projected monthly difference in total purchase value between the trial and no-trial groups. Each group’s value is first projected to a 100% audience so the two are comparable even on an unequal split, then the difference is scaled to a 30-day month.

Peer benchmarks

When your experiment has enough trial activity, two benchmark cards labeled Try Before You Buy Conversion Rate compare your app’s trailing 7-day TBYB conversion rate against peer apps and show where your app falls in the peer distribution. One card compares your app against other apps in its primary genre, and the other compares your app across all genres.

If your experiment does not yet have enough trial activity, or your app is not yet in the latest weekly benchmark, these cards show an empty state until the data is available. Benchmarks refresh weekly.

Experiment table

The table breaks down each audience group:

Original: Your control group, which does not see the TBYB offer.

TBYB Test: The group you show the TBYB offer to.

For each group, you can see audience size, conversion rate, reach, unique clicks, unique conversions, and total purchases. Compare the conversion rate and total purchases between the Original and TBYB Test groups to determine whether TBYB is benefiting your app.

Maximize your TBYB effectiveness

These insights can help you maximize the effectiveness of your TBYB offers.

Choose the right trial type

If your app has a specific moment that you think would be best for converting users, consider using the achievement-based trial. For games with levels, ability unlocks, or other key moments, this can pair well with achievement-based trials. If your game is more non-linear and open-ended, a time-based trial may be better for you.

Choose an appropriate trial duration

With both achievement-based and time-based trials, you want to strike a balance between letting the user play long enough to get interested, but not so long that they feel the app is no longer worth buying.

Experiment with cover art

If you enable TBYB, your app will be featured in a dedicated TBYB shelf on the Store homepage. To achieve better visibility for your app, consider using the A/B Testing Tool to ensure your cover art is driving clicks to your app’s product detail page.

Try pairing TBYB with a discount or sale

TBYB can help boost awareness of your app, and pairing with a discount can help to boost conversions even more.

Continued testing

Build on what you’ve learned. Run more tests with an altered hypothesis to improve key metrics and asset performance. A data-driven approach conducted through multiple tests can help you understand the incremental impact of TBYB.