Case Study: PlantSnap achieves global user growth and higher freemium-to-premium conversions with CleverTap

How PlantSnap Built a Global User Base

PlantSnap, founded by Eric Ralls, is an AI/ML-powered plant identification app and open database (600k+ plants, 200M+ images) that grew from a $3.99 paid app into a global tool for gardeners, botanists, and citizen scientists. The core challenge was scaling internationally and turning a growing freemium user base into long‑term, revenue‑generating customers while also lacking visibility into in‑app behavior to guide engagement and monetization.

To solve this, PlantSnap switched to a freemium model (2019), translated the app into 37 languages, and implemented event tracking and targeted campaigns via CleverTap—using RFM segmentation, push/in‑app notifications, and email to drive conversions and upsells. They also tracked ad views for ad revenue, partnered with 1,200+ botanical gardens for promotion, and used geo‑tagged snaps to improve their ML models. Results included ~500k downloads in the first freemium month, 33M+ installs overall, a 30‑day retention of 39%, stronger conversion funnels, and expanded community and data for ongoing growth.

PlantSnap

Eric Ralls

Founder & CEO