The Anatomy of Upgrade & Trial Triggers — 30+ examples from top SaaS brands 🚀

A personal deep dive into my new free collection — examples from Slack, Notion, Lovable, Intercom, and more.

Hello everyone 👋 I’m Kate Syuma, and welcome to Growthmates.news — the newsletter where we explore growth stories to inspire your professional and personal growth. Join the community of 6,900+ Product, Design, and Growth people from companies like Amplitude, Intercom, Miro, Atlassian, Grammarly, Framer, and more.

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Recently, I dropped my Upgrade & Trial Activation resource and it blew up. 400+ comments. 🤯

So here’s the full access to it + some special deep-dives from me on selected examples. I’ve been collecting these triggers for years — not because I planned to make a “library,” but because every time I use products, I notice these little moments that either really work or feel off. I save them for myself, and they’ve become one of my most useful tools at work.

So today I wanted to share a practical slice of that collection with you. Think of it as a guided tour: what they do, why they work (or not), and how you can translate them into your product.

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Brought to you in partnership with Mobbin 🖤

Mobbin is the world's largest UI & UX reference library of fully searchable mobile & web screenshots. Stop worrying that you missed industry trends — find Onboarding, Checkout, and more flows from 1000+ apps in one place.

I used Mobbin myself to create this collection I’m sharing with you today. It makes spotting and saving patterns effortless — so I can focus on analyzing why they work. 😉 It’s one of tools in my Growthmates Bundlet that I curate to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

Best way to support Growthmates? Explore these fantastic tools below 👇

• Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

• Beacon AI — the smartest AI agent for product and design teams to identify and fix UX issues that block activation, retention, and conversion.

• Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇

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This library expands on the 30+ most effective upgrade & trial activation examples from TOP brands I checked like Miro, Loom, Lovable, and more, so you can steal ideas, adapt them to your product, and run experiments immediately.

What’s Inside:

• 30+ real SaaS & AI products — from trial sign-up to paid conversion;

• Mini-breakdowns in comments — my suggestions behind each screenshot;

• Best practices you can lift and test in your own product today.

TOP-5 insights from the review:

If you’re short on time, here’s the TL;DR of a review that took me hours to put together. But I definitely recommend diving deeper with me below 👇

1. Contextual explainers win → Notion explains permissions right when invites are sent. Full members = higher retention.

2. AI products push earlier → Claude shows plans at the end of onboarding. Users arrive with strong intent to pay.

3. Profile as the upgrade hub → Lovable turns the user profile into the main entry point for nudges and credit-based upsells.

4. Unlimited AI sells → Gamma drives upgrades by promising “unlimited AI” and dropping CTAs into natural touchpoints.

5. Action-based triggers → Miro doesn’t hide paid features. Instead, it shows the value with a quick animation when users try the action.

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I want to make sure you actually take action on these flows! So I’ve put together a few ways I can help you to start testing them (and iterating on them):

1. Join my upcoming “User Centric Growth Course” — ⏰ 5 days left to save 250$.

It’s all about building onboarding, activation, and upgrade flows that put the user at the centre — and turn them into paying, loyal customers. Plus, you can bring tour own challege and work on it during these 3 weeks intensive.

Past 60+ students from Dropbox, Atlassian, GitHub, Loom, and Miro have used it to uncover drop-offs, design smarter flows, and launch high-impact experiments. This time, I’m adding:

• More live time with me;

• A guest session from a top PLG leader;

• Refreshed templates and frameworks based on what’s working now.

⚡️ Save $250 (Only 7 spots, valid until 22 August).

2. Join my Onboarding & Activation Sprint.

This is the step-by-step system I use with clients to double activation rates and increase trial-to-paid conversions. Fun fact — my most recent client was Mobbin, and we unpacked a TON of quick wins and big bets to work on. Here’s just a sneak peek at what we can co-create with your team 👀 👇

⚡️1 spot for Q3 (earliest availability 22 September).

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The BONUS part for paid members 🎁

As an extra token of gratitude for paid subscribers, I prepared something special.

• 📹 20-minute video deep-dive from me with comments on my favorite examples;

• 👇 11 examples breakdown from Slack, Grammarly, Canva, Riverside, Clay, and more;

• 💡 My recommendations on what you can try out for your product growth.

Now, let’s dive into the most juicy part here 👇