screenroveShow them what they're missing: 74 feature gating examples
We studied 74 feature gating examples from 43 SaaS products: sample data behind the lock, blurred results, usage meters, and which limit screens let you leave.
Most locked features in SaaS do not say "no". They show you the thing first. TickTick fills a locked calendar with a month of fake events, Dribbble greys out an analytics page full of numbers, and Grammarly tells you it found 3 more fixes it will not show you. We pulled every feature gating example and usage limit from our paywall library, 74 screens from 43 products, to see how products sell what you cannot use yet and whether they let you leave.
The short version: the strongest gates put the locked feature on screen, in its real place, with real-looking content. And on the screens that interrupt you, the exit is where products differ most. Splitwise stops a daily expense entry with no close button. Taskade stops an AI request with four buttons and the line "Your work is saved".
What 74 feature gating examples look like
Of the 308 paywall screens in our set, 53 are feature gates (a paid feature you tried to use) and 21 are usage limits (a free allowance you ran out of). Together that is 24% of the wall. Three numbers stand out:
- 46 of the 74 appear at the moment of use, when someone clicked the locked thing. Another 18 appear at a limit.
- Inline is the most common feature-gate layout: 23 of 53, ahead of modals (12) and popovers (8). See inline feature gates.
- Only 2 of the 74 show any free option: Splitwise's "wait until tomorrow" line and the current-plan Free column in Eraser's file-limit grid. Everywhere else the choice is upgrade or leave.
Within them we found five ways of showing people what they are missing.
1. Sample data behind the lock
The most generous pattern renders the paid view with placeholder content. TickTick does this more than anyone: 5 of its screens are feature gates, and on the calendar views the whole month or week is filled with sample tasks ("Jogging", "Product review", "Yoga class"). The only signs of the lock are an orange Upgrade Now sitting inside the view switcher and one grey line underneath: "Premium only, sample data for reference."
Others do a lighter version of the same thing:
- Dub Customers fades two rows (liam@acme.com at $20 LTV, emma@acme.com at $1,200) into a screenshot of a filled customer page above "Upgrade to Business". Its Events page does the same with event rows.
- Dribbble lays a white "Unlock Analytics with Pro" card over greyed stat cards reading 132,285 shot views, 721 likes and 316 saves.
- Toggl puts a TIME OFF PRO card ("Start 30-day free trial", $2/user/month billed annually) above a padlocked "Your 2026 Balances" section whose Vacation and Sick leave cards are blurred.
- Glide demos backups with a restore-timeline slider and a "Restore from Sept 28, 10:00AM" tooltip,.
- Hotjar answers a question you did not ask: its Sense Chat popover shows a mocked chat about where trial users drop off in onboarding, with a generated chart, above "Compare plans".
In each case the preview is the product itself, not a list of benefits.
2. Blur and count
When the product has already done the work, the strongest move is to prove it. Grammarly does this twice. Its suggestions panel says "We found 3 more ways to improve your text with Pro" with a yellow 3 badge on Clarity. Its plagiarism tab blurs a mock report and a citation card at the top, then pitches "Try for $0" under it.
A count is about the user's own content, not the plan. It is also one of only 3 of the 74 screens with a skip link.
3. Ghosted results
Relume generates a site, then shows you all of it. The Home page renders fully styled, while every page past the free limit stays on the canvas as a washed-out wireframe with a small "Upgrade to view pages" pill. In the component library the previews stay intact and only the copy action on each card turns into an Upgrade button.
This only works where the result already exists, but it is the clearest case of the free tier doing the selling: the output is there, only access is held back.
4. Real swatches with padlocks
For cosmetic or configuration features, the gate can simply be the setting itself, locked. Todoist shows its Pro themes as real swatches (Kale, Blueberry, Lavender, Raspberry), each with a padlock, under one "Unlock more themes" card with a red Upgrade button.
The same idea shows up in menus. Kittl lists SVG and PDF in its export format dropdown, greyed with a gold crown each, so the lock appears exactly where the choice is made. Bolt keeps Max and bolt forge in its model menu with padlocks. Both go one step too far, though: 7 of the 74 screens show a lock with no upgrade button on the gate itself, Kittl's export menu, Bolt's model menu and Dub's targeting dialog among them.
5. Usage meters and limit bars
Usage limits are rarer: 21 screens from 14 products. Mermaid Chart accounts for 5 of them by itself, because once you hit the free cap a navy bar with "3 of 3 personal" and a full orange meter sits above every file view: the dashboard, folders, list view, even with a card menu open.
Superlist takes the opposite approach: a modal that only appears at the limit. "Need more lists?" and "You've hit your limit with 5 free lists" fill the left column, and the right side is the regular two-card picker (Basic $6/mo, Super $25/mo) with a close button in the corner. Compare all screens shown at a limit.
Hard stops vs soft exits
We record how each paywall can be dismissed. Across the 74 gate and limit screens:
| Way out | Screens | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Close button | 18 | 24% |
| Skip or back link | 3 | 4% |
| None | 34 | 46% |
| Full page (not applicable) | 19 | 26% |
Leave out the full pages and 34 of 55 gate and limit screens (62%) have no way out. For every other paywall type in our set, the same figure is 34 of 139 (24%). Some of that is structural: 18 of the 34 are inline cards or banners that sit inside the page, where "no exit" just means the lock stays until you upgrade. Of the 16 gate and limit modals, only 3 have no close button.
Two of those 3 come from Splitwise. Hit the daily expense limit and a Pro sheet opens with no close button. The copy offers "a 7-day free trial, or wait until tomorrow when your daily limit resets", but the only buttons are View all benefits and Start your free trial.
Taskade handles running out of AI credits inside the chat thread. The card opens with "Your work is saved" and offers four exits: Upgrade Plan, Buy $5 credits, Try Again and Ignore. CodeSandbox's out-of-credits page has a green "All your work is saved." line and a "Back to the dashboard" link above Upgrade to Pro.
We cannot say which converts better. But Splitwise asks you to start a trial before you can leave, while Taskade tells you nothing is lost and lets you choose.
How we counted
All screens were captured in desktop browsers with research accounts in September and October 2026. A vision model recorded each screen's attributes (type, moment, layout, way out, buttons), and every attribute can be checked on the screen's own page. "Feature gate" and "usage limit" are our labels, and the way-out counts reflect what was visible on the captured screen. We capture what we saw, not A/B tests, so nothing here says which pattern converts better.
What to steal
- Render the locked view with sample data. If the feature is a view (calendar, analytics, event stream), fill it with labelled sample content like TickTick and Dub instead of showing an empty state.
- Count what you are holding back. If the product has already computed the result, say how many: Grammarly's "3 more ways" is about the user's own document.
- Keep locked options in place. Swatches, export formats and model names belong where the user would pick them, marked with a padlock or crown, like Todoist and Kittl.
- Every padlock needs a click target. 7 of 74 screens lock something with no upgrade button. Put one next to the lock, or make the lock itself clickable.
- Say the work is safe at a limit. Taskade and CodeSandbox both lead with it. If there is a free path, like waiting a day, make it a button rather than a sentence.
Browse all feature gates and usage limits on the wall, or connect the Screenrove MCP server and ask your agent for feature-gate references that show sample data behind the lock.