You Don't Need More Traffic.You Need More Revenue from the Traffic You Already Have.
Most subscription businesses pour money into acquisition while pricing, packaging, conversion, and retention quietly leak revenue every month. I help you find and fix those leaks.
30 minutes. No pitch. We'll look at where your revenue is leaking.
Trusted By:
The Common Problems I See: A+ Product, C+ Revenue Growth.
Strong product-market fit, great experience
Pricing that hasn't been revisited since launch — you're almost certainly undercharging
Packaging that confuses users instead of converting them
Paid features that get no visibility — you built them, but nobody knows they exist
A paywall that's never been optimized — the highest-leverage screen in your product, untouched
A checkout page losing buyers at the last step — and nobody's measuring it
Failed payments silently killing growth every single month
Zero expansion revenue — every subscriber worth exactly the same forever
Focusing on Monetization Early Matters a Lot. The exact same changes, just done faster have a massive impact.
Same three changes. The only difference is timing. Implementing immediately instead of waiting produces +170% more ARR over 12 months — because every improvement compounds on the last.
Every month you don't optimize your monetization, the gap gets wider.
Every Dollar Left on the Table Is a Dollar You Can't Spend on Growth. Monetization isn't a follow-up project. It's the growth strategy.
I'm Dan Layfield. I ran the growth team at Codecademy for five years.
When I started, we were doing $10M ARR. When I left, $55M. Codecademy was acquired for $525M in 2022.
We didn't get there by buying more traffic. Codecademy already had massive organic reach. The growth came from the boring stuff — pricing experiments, checkout optimization, plan mix changes, retention systems, payment recovery. The details that most teams skip because they're not as exciting as a new feature launch.
Now I work with subscription businesses that want to do the same thing. Not growth hacks. Revenue fundamentals.
Results
Turned A Fast-Growing Free Coding Platform Into A Revenue-Ready Subscription Business
+68%
MRR
-24%
Churn
+48%
Conversion
Read case study →
Increased Monthly Donation Revenue 60.5% While Protecting A Free Learning Experience
+60.5%
Revenue
+59.5%
New Donors
+18.7%
Avg Donation
Read case study →
Cut Churn 18%, Increased LTV 33%, And Lifted Trial Conversion 28.5% In 7 Months
-18%
Churn
+33%
LTV
+28.5%
Trial Conv.
Read case study →
“Dan is an absolute beast. We've seen a ~80% increase in Monthly Revenue in the two months since Dan started leading the growth here at Codédex. 100/10 recommend.”
Sonny Li
Founder & CEO, Codédex
“We'd been experimenting with funnel optimizations on our own for months with mediocre results. Dan came in, suggested a few key adjustments to how we thought about customer acquisition, and bent the curve for us quickly.”
Steven Puri
Founder & CEO, Sukha Company
“From the first conversation Dan brought real value with structure, clear roadmaps, and the rare ability to shift seamlessly from high-level strategy to technical detail. We're accelerating our renewal efforts and focusing the team on the right levers.”
Esh Agarwal
Director of Insights & Analytics, Busuu
Five Places Your Subscription Business Is Leaving Money
Every subscription business I work with has gaps in at least two or three of these. Most have never looked at some of them at all.
Paywall Strategy
How do you divide free from paid? Most companies either give away too much or gate too aggressively — and they've never tested which. The right paywall structure is the single highest-leverage decision in a subscription business.
Free Products
Should you have a free product?
Paid Products
How should your paid products be divided?
Pricing & Packaging
When did you last change your pricing? If the answer is "launch" or "a year ago," you're almost certainly undercharging. And if your best users pay the same as your casual users, your packaging is leaving expansion revenue on the table.
LTV Extensions
Are you seeing account expansion?
Upgrades
Do your best users end up paying you the most?
Self-Service Conversion
How well does your product sell itself? Your pricing page, checkout flow, and upgrade prompts are doing most of the selling — and most teams have never optimized them. A 2% improvement in checkout conversion compounds into serious money.
Checkout Pages
Is your checkout page following best practices?
Conversion Tactics
How do you motivate users to purchase?
LTV & Plan Mix
What's your ratio of monthly to annual subscribers? What's your expansion path look like? These determine how much each subscriber is actually worth — and most businesses have no strategy here. They just offer monthly and annual and hope for the best.
Plan Mix
What is the ratio of short to long term plans?
Annual Plans
How can you push more users into long term plans?
Payment Processing
What percentage of your payments fail each month? Do you know? Most companies don't. Failed payments are the quietest revenue killer in subscriptions — and the easiest to fix.
Payment Success Rate
What % of your payments are failing and why?
Revenue Recapture
Do you have best practices set up to win back lost revenue?
Who This Is For (And Who It Isn't)
Good Fit
- ✓You have a subscription or recurring revenue product live with real users
- ✓You're consumer or self-service B2B (product-led growth)
- ✓You've got traction but know you're leaving money on the table
- ✓You're willing to run experiments and ship changes — not looking for a strategy deck that sits in a drawer
Not a Fit
- ✗You need help with demand gen, sales-led growth, or brand marketing
- ✗You don't have a product yet
- ✗You want a one-time audit with no implementation
Frequently Asked Questions
How long are engagements?
Average 6-12 months. First month is diagnostic — I map your revenue engine, find the gaps, and prioritize. Then we work in ship-and-measure cycles, structured around your team's cadence.
What does working together look like?
I embed as a strategic partner, not a vendor. Weekly working sessions, async support between, direct input on pricing, conversion, and retention decisions. I work with founders, PMs, and growth leads.
Where can you not help?
Demand gen, sales-led growth, brand marketing. I focus on what happens after someone shows up.
How do I know if it's worth the investment?
Simple math: a 2% improvement in checkout conversion on $2M ARR adds $40K+ per year. That's one lever. Most clients see returns within the first 2-3 months.
Stop Spending More to Get More.Start Making More from What You Already Have.
Book a free 30-minute call. No pitch — we'll look at your subscription business together and I'll tell you where I see the biggest revenue gaps.
Or, if you want to get a feel for how I think first: subscribe to the newsletter