5
5 Comments

Free Plan Tier VS Free Trial - What has worked best for you?

Question for my indie hacker friends....

Free Plan Tier (limited features) VERSUS Free Trial (ex. 15 day free trial of paid plan)

What worked better for sign ups that converted to a paid plan on your product? Any words of wisdom or experience you can share related to this?

Backstory: I am debating what could work better for my product. Right now I have a 10 day free trial that gives access to all of the paid features for those 10 days. Once the 10 days expire they must pay for the plan to use the product. I am considering extending the trial to 30 days to provide more time with the product and make it more sticky for the user.

It's worth noting I have done minimal marketing with my product so far - so this question may get answered for me as I get the word out. But I would love to hear your perspective and thoughts of what worked for you!

I appreciate you all! Cheers.

  1. 2

    This is a really interesting area of startup growth and user acquisition! In my opinion there is no one right answer, depending on what your product does and who your users are will likely affect which direction you go in!

    When it comes to free trials though, as a user, I prefer a lengthy one so I can fully test the product and measure some results – I don't want to have to pay for the tool to later find out that it's the wrong fit for my needs. This means that I'll pick a product with a 30 day free-trial over a 7/10 day one.

    Since you haven't done much marketing, it sounds like you just need to get the product out there and talk to your users and find out what their preferences/needs are. Once you get some usage data and better understand your users, you'll be able to design your free trial or freemium plan to have a greater impact on conversion.

    Drop a link to your product here too, would love to take a look – and best of luck!

    1. 1

      Thanks Edward! That was insightful and makes sense. Have you ever paid for a trial? Ahrefs is great example of they offering a super cheap rate for their paid plan for a period of time as their trial.

      Agreed, more marketing and users are needed before I can truly know what works best. I was curious what other folks have found for their products worked for them.

      My product is: www.trekkerlist.com (tool for outdoor adventure planning). Wasn't trying to do promo but since you asked feel free to check it out. :)

  2. 1

    Free Trials is hard to convert after 7 or 14 days when you don't ask for Credit Card or PayPal approval details.

    1. 1

      Thanks! In your experience what has worked for you on your products?

      1. 1

        Completely free plan with limits. And later notify them to upgrade for better limits.

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 28 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 14 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments