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Software as a service

For video software: whether tutorials, creators and watermarked exports bring paying users.

Video software, from browser editors to hosting and streaming tools, is found through tutorials, creators and the watermark on free exports, then paid for monthly or yearly. Tally ties each plan and credit pack to the visit that won it, and reads the no-referrer visits a watermark tends to produce instead of lumping them into Direct.

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01How they sell

  • FreemiumFree exports with a watermark or a length limit; the upgrade removes the mark and raises the resolution.
  • SubscriptionMonthly or yearly plans for creators and teams, tiered by storage, minutes or seats.
  • UsageCredits for rendering, transcription minutes or streaming hours, bought in packs on top of a plan.

02Payments it reads

  • StripePlans and credit packs through Checkout; renewals, packs and refunds are read.
  • PaddleDesktop and browser editors selling to creators worldwide use Paddle as merchant of record; transactions and adjustments are read.
  • Lemon SqueezySmaller tools, such as caption or thumbnail editors, sell plans through Lemon Squeezy checkout links.

What Tally can't read

  • Subscriptions bought in your mobile editor through the App Store or Google Play aren't read.
  • Views, watch time and plays of your customers' videos aren't read; only visits to your own site are counted.
  • A desktop editor's licence sold through a platform's own store, rather than your checkout, isn't read.

03Where buyers come from

  • YouTube tutorialsCreators teaching editing keep your tool on screen for the length of a video; a UTM link in the description keeps the credit.
  • Watermarked exportsViewers who notice your mark on someone's video search for the name or type it in.
  • Sponsored creatorsCreators share a discount link in a sponsored segment; a UTM per creator shows each one's revenue and refunds.
  • One-task searchesSearches for how to add captions, trim a clip or compress a file bring people with one video to finish today.
  • Course creators and marketersTeams who sell courses or make product videos compare hosting and players on privacy and branding.

04What Tally answers

  1. Does the watermark on free exports bring buyers?

    People who saw the mark tend to type your name or search for it. Readable Direct counts typed visits apart from shared links and returns from checkout, with their revenue beside them, so the watermark's effect isn't hidden in one Direct row.

    Readable Direct

  2. Do buyers from a sponsored video stay past the first month?

    Lifetime value by first source shows each creator's customers, their lifetime revenue, renewals and repeat rate, so a sponsorship that sells many first months but few second ones is plain.

    Lifetime value

  3. Do buyers spend longer on the feature pages than other visitors?

    Engaged time and scroll depth per page, for buyers and everyone else, show which feature pages hold the people who pay; those are worth linking from the editor's upgrade prompt.

    What they read

  4. Which tutorial video sends buyers?

    Tag each video's description link with its own campaign and the campaign breakdown lists every video with its visitors and revenue.

    Sources with revenue

  5. Do people pay right after their first export?

    Path to purchase gives the share who pay on the first visit and the median time to purchase; send an export goal too and you can see whether payment follows the first watermarked export.

    Path to purchase

05Numbers worth watching

Refunds and chargebacks
Refunds and chargebacks by source; a sponsored creator whose viewers ask for money back is costing more than the segment.
Renewals
Renewals by first source, the test of whether one-project buyers become creators who stay.
Revenue by source
Revenue behind each tutorial, creator campaign and search page, on one list.
Engaged time
Engaged time counts while the tab is in view and someone moved in the last 30 seconds, so a visitor watching a long demo without touching anything stops counting; read it on pages with short clips.

06An example

Example

Reading time

38s

median per pageview

Scroll depth

59%

average depth, of 27,216 views measured

Read to the end

27%

of measured views reached 90% or more

What they read

29,264 pageviews · last 30 days

Open a page to see how far down people read it, and how buyers read it before paying.

  2. /pricing5,526 views78% scrolled on average58s reading time, median

    58s

    reading time, median per view

    78%

    scrolled, on average

    5,526 views · 5,194 with a measured depth

    How far down they read

    Share of measured views that scrolled at least this far

    1. 25% — reached a quarter of the page:95%
    2. 50% — reached half of the page:84%
    3. 75% — reached three quarters of the page:69%
    4. 90%+ — reached the end of the page:48%

    Buyers before paying vs didn't buy

    • Buyers, before paying149 views · 107 buyers96% scrolled on average,1m 41s reading time, median
    • Didn't buy5,342 views · 3,815 visitors61% scrolled on average,44s reading time, median

    35 views by buyers after paying are left out of both.

    Buyers are visitors whose first sale came after viewing this page; only their views before that payment count.

Reading time runs only while the tab is visible and the visitor is active; it's the median per view. A view with no engagement report counts as 0s of reading. Its scroll depth is unknown, so it's left out of every scroll figure rather than counted as 0%. 27,216 of 29,264 pageviews have a measured depth.

Fig. 1What they read on the example site, buyers against everyone else. For video software, remember that engaged time pauses when nobody moves, so a page built around a long demo can read shorter than it was watched.

07Setting up

  1. React and ViteIf the editor is a Vite single-page app, the tag goes in index.html, and moving between the timeline, export and settings screens counts as pageviews.
  2. StripePass tally_visitor_id in Checkout Session metadata for plans and credit packs alike, so each pack links on its own.
  3. Send tally('export', { watermark: true }) when a free user exports, so free exports become a goal you can set against upgrades.

08Questions

  • Do views of our customers' videos count as visits?

    Not unless a page carries the tag. Keep it out of the player and the share pages, so only people on your own site are counted.

  • Is a customer who buys three credit packs counted three times?

    As one customer with three payments. Each pack has its own receipt and credited source, and lifetime value and repeat rate add them up under the customer's first source.

  • A creator gives a discount link. Is revenue counted at the discounted price?

    Yes. Tally reads what was actually paid, without tax, converted to US dollars at the day's ECB rate.

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