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Claudiu Cogalniceanu

Free or Free Trial?

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I posted a poll on Twitter some time ago, and asked this very question: What is better - Free or Free Trial? And the results were quite clear. Looks like a completely Free, standalone plan, is beneficial for getting users, show and create value without friction, and make your product as best you can to upsell. So I removed the Free Trial, and left a completely Free plan with everything you need to get rid of all spam for good. Check it out here šŸ‘‰ https://sentrya.net Do you have a Free trial or a Free plan on your service?

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AndrƩ J
Depends on the product. but freemium is preferred in most cases yes
Sandra Djajic
@sentry_co Fully agree! I have noticed that providing a free value is more beneficial for your product in a long-term perspective
Mohammed Kheezar Hayat
Depends on what the product is. If managing expenses is important then free trial.
Claudiu Cogalniceanu
@zaryat absolutely Mohammed! Itā€™s about finding the right balance and do what makes sense for your product.
Pierre-Yves Dubreucq
Interesting, I think that it depend if your product is young or not. And witch type of product too
Pierre-Yves Dubreucq
@pydubreucq on Sweego (https://www.sweego.io) we choosed freemium too
Claudiu Cogalniceanu
@pydubreucq it does depend on the product, yes, but I think a freemium plan is the best option for user acquisition. Love your product btw - you offer more on the free plan than a lot of the competitors (talking about SMTP)šŸ‘
Neel Patel
looks great!
Giacomo Bretel-De Simone
One super cool thing is lifetime access for early users at a reasonable price. For instance if your product will cost $20/month, you can give lifetime access for $50 before launch. If your product is good, this will bring you early revenue + ultra supportive early users
Matthew Rhoden
@french_ninja personally I would never do lifetime access, those accounts become a liability that you will have to deal with for many years. On top of that, if you want to sell the business investors will hate that. Just something to consider.
Claudiu Cogalniceanu
@matthewrhoden1 I dabbled a bit with a lifetime deal, and got one salešŸ˜… I donā€™t know if itā€™s a blessing in disguise or not, but I didnā€™t felt comfortable giving full access for life for a 2 year cost. I know that sometimes ā€œlifetimeā€ deals are actually limited (I even saw people closing down the business because the revenue generated from lifetime offers, couldnā€™t cover the operating costs), but I plan on staying in business a long time, and I didnā€™t want these lifetimes to bite me in the ass in 5 years
Absolutely, Claudiu! While free trials offer a sneak peek into the full experience, opting for completely free tools can sometimes mean compromising on features or support.
Claudiu Cogalniceanu
@zijian youā€™re absolutely right, Gong! For my freemium plan, I added a support group on Slack, and other paid plans have email support on top of the group
Terrence Kelleman
What was the poll result on X?
Claudiu Cogalniceanu
@terrence_kelleman sorry, I wasnā€™t being clear enough šŸ˜€ The Free standalone plan won the poll, and I got some feedback from current users saying the same
Anish Sharma
Free plan is more effective to grab the users as they don't have to think much before creating an account.
Michael Shver
I guess freemium is the best solution for most products. Enough options for people to try the product, understand if it fits them, and get used to it, but with additional options, that give users additional value and developers can monetize. As I see it, the biggest problem is finding the balance between free and paid features šŸ˜…
Claudiu Cogalniceanu
@michaelshver definitely Michael! It was tricky for me as well - I had to choose between some features (and risk having users say that the service is sh*t), or all features, and I went for the latter. I want users to be mind blown the next day when they see the results šŸ¤Æ And since my operational costs are minimal, it made sense to go for a freemium plan
Nishi Bhavsar
We have both for our products. For our product called Pagmaker we have Free trial and for our product called Vepaar we have Free plan with limitation.
Ricardo Batista
If it adds value, remove the Free Trial even.
Heyalbert
Depends on product type
Yeahia Sarker
Having both like canva!
Claudiu Cogalniceanu
@yeahiasarker yeah, I kind of have both. I have a free standalone plan, and a free trial on paid plans (with more features). It makes sense to remove as much friction as possible
Milli Sen
Free at first.. if the demand is high, switch it to free trial.