Ask IH: how do you structure your free trial?
One of my teammates and I have different perspectives when it comes to free trials and I thought this would be the perfect place to ask.
Let’s say you have 3 different plans.
$29
$69
$129
They have different usage limits and features but all of them come with a 21 day free trial.
If someone were to start a free trial by clicking the link for the $29 plan, should they have access to all the features or only the features associated with the $29 plan?
Don't know the context of the niche or service you provide, so it's difficult to assume if such approach makes sense (you can potentially lose on the people to buy your premium as fewer people will ever try ALL the features during the trial).
But if you put it like this, the user should have access to the plan-limited features, to avoid misunderstanding.
In such case, I would clearly emphasize it with the trial CTA.
Like "Try the X-plan features for free" or something like that.
Thanks for your input. That makes sense.
I would say they should have access only to the features associated with the $29 plan. At the end of the free trial they will be charged (I assume) and be granted access to the $29 plan and not the $69 / $129 plan.
If you give them access to all the features on the free trial (regardless of what plan they select), it may confuse the user.
You will give them the impression that after the free trial they will still have access to what they were using.
It has happened to me. This guy was accusing us that we charged the features offered in the plan he was paying. In fact, he simply ran out of the free trial.
Ah, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for that example.
I'd think carefully whether you need to have different feature sets, when you also have different usage limits. Are there some features you only need when you have higher usage?
You could find people put off buying the $29 package, because they see a feature they could use in the $69 package and won't get, and they don't need the usage that comes with the $69 package - whichever they buy, they feel robbed. (Even if they don't actually need that feature at all. Many people experience a subconscious sense of entitlement as soon as they pay money.)
And obviously, no feature difference, your question disappears.
To be frank, I’m not sure - without testing - if usage limits or features are the best route.
Usage limits are the easiest for us from a technical standpoint.
But it seems that features are also important in our space.
I’ll just have to test it in the end. Thanks for the input.
Out of interest.... does offering more features cost you more to provide? I'm sure usage does come with a cost, as CPU, memory, network bandwidth, will all have costs for you. Is there a financial basis for different feature sets, or a marketing one?
They cost a negligible amount.
There’s no difference between a financial reason or a marketing reason.
But to answer your question, it’s more of a marketing reason and to prevent overwhelm for a user.
Certain businesses literally don’t need all that power cause they’re not sophisticated enough to use it and it would add too much complexity for them. Even if it doesn’t, it would just lay unsused.
I think I just answered my question. :)
Freemium is old in the tooth. So you need 1st, AHA moment to see value. You need 2nd a way to monitize the freeloaders who won't convert.
No, this isn’t a freemium model. It’s a limited amount of time to use the product so you make an informed decision
I would say this depends on your bundling approach.
If the features are bundled based on user goals, the individual bundles target different customers who are trying to achieve different things with the product. To convert as many users as possible a free trial should get them to their 'AHA' moment as fast as possible. This 'AHA' moment will be something different for users who choose bundle A than for users who choose bundle B because they are trying to achieve something else by using the product. If you give them access to all features available, this will confuse them and it will take them longer to get to their personal 'AHA' moment, that is why in this case it is better to just give them access to the feature bundle they chose.
If you want to read into goal-based bundling I recommend looking up the Job-to-be-done framework.
If the features are bundled differently (let's say based on amount of users / projects / size of team) I would recommend giving them access to all features as it shows them what is possible with the full product and so they get motivated to onboard their whole team / all projects etc. into your product.
Thanks for your input. I just finished reading when coffee and kale compete. Great book.
I can’t actually say with complete certainty if it’s tied to users goals. That’s the assumption we’re making though - because we don’t have a large enough cohort to test against (just a few users).
But it’s definitely not based on seats/team size.