How to decide on freemium features?
I'm in the process of "drawing the line" on free stuff in my product I've recently built: https://kritikos.app.
I want to get other more experienced indie hackers' input on how to draw the line.
In short; my app is one where you can create sessions that are tied to links that your audience/clientele can enter to give anonymous feedback via a simple prompt. For example, the session link could be embedded in a personal website for use after a patient visit (one real use case), shared in a Zoom chat after a lecture (another proven use case), or represented as QR codes in the bathroom of a coffee shop (currently pursuing this). This feedback data is viewable in a simple dashboard, and I plan on writing integrations that utilize email, Square/Stripe POS, slack, etc. (for paying users) to get this data into useful places, and to get more of it.
Where could I "draw the line" on a free user? I have some ideas:
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Limit number of sessions that can be started
- Pro: Simple, easy for users (and me) to understand.
- Con: Free users may 'work around' this by leaving sessions open indefinitely/repurposing sessions. Fix: auto close?
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App integrations only for paying users
- Pro: creates a clear separation of free and pro
- Con: the value-add is in the collected feedback data, are integrations worth the money?
I'd like to know how people decided to "draw the line." Do I need more user collaboration first? Any tips appreciated!
Also -- if you're a web designer/UX person; lets chat.
I struggle with this myself, but recently I've been looking at it in terms of business goals. Is my goal to have a high number of users using my app? Or is my goal more paying customers?
The answer for us is always: we want a high number of users using our app.
Going backwards from this, how do we ensure that free users maximize their value but also convert to paid users?
The best example I've seen is usage restriction, without sacrificing experience.
Usage restriction lets them evaluate the platform for free. If they like and start using it enough, they will quickly need to upgrade.
Restricting integrations on free tiers also works sometimes. Especially crucial integrations. But it's a hit or miss because then people who don't need integrations have no motivation to upgrade. A combination of the two might work.
You'll have to play around with your tiers to find out what that sweet spot is. A good example I found recently was Transloadit limiting to 2 GB total upload storage, after which you need to pay to continue. And the first plan starts at 10 GB per month. By making their service good and easy to integrate, we had no trouble upgrading when we hit our limit.
You'll always get users that won't upgrade. But you still want to maximize the amount of users that will. Especially if your product is valuable.
Good luck!
Ok! Based on your input I'm thinking a full featured free tier that stops functionality at some point, like in the free tier you can only view the first ~300 responses from customers, or something along those lines. That way customers can get an honest sense of the value-add and decide to move forward with a subscription later (which hopefully will be a no-brainer).
Additionally this program seems easy to understand and easy to implement as a developer.
Yes this is perfect! This forces customers who love your app and use it to pay. While at the same time, filtering those who leave after a simple trial.
Hey jator, I'm neither an experienced Indie Hacker nor a UX designer, but I checked out your site and just wanted to say that, as a lay person, I really like the design. It's simple, clean, and easy to navigate. Maybe increase the spacing between each of the divs a bit and align the font sizes a little more ;)
Thanks for the comment! Quick clarification; are you talking about fonts on the landing page or in the dashboard?
I was referencing the font sizes on the landing page. The headers that start with "1.. 2.. 3.." seem a little too big compared to the description that follows each step.
The font on the dashboard look on point.