How to handle users that create multiple accounts to for a free trial?
I'm seeing people sign up and create multiple accounts to get past the 1 instance limit for free trials. Any way to limit this? Maybe ask for credit card if my backend detects a multi user?
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That suggests you’re offering something they like - best thing to do is reach out to them, so they’ll know they’re seen to be circumventing the trial, and so you can ask them why they don’t convert to paid. Maybe your prices are too high for your customer base, maybe something else. But asking them is probably the smartest thing to do first.
Basically: “Talk to your customers”
Credit card to start a free trial is a good way to limit growth and conversion, most wouldn't even give your product a chance. Having so much demand that people are trying to hack the system is on the contrary a good sign. Focusing on growth and conversion without impeding growth is the primary goal.
Finding ways to identify users that try to hack the system and implement methods to notify them that you know that they are creating multiple accounts and offering them an inducement to sign up with a credit card on the spot ONLY THEN (Such as "we know your using multiple accounts to sign up for the free trail, why don't you sign up now for 3 months at a 50% discount" (without actually kicking them off) - having a potential paying user who isn't paying but using your product when your trying to grow, is better than not having any user.
True that! I like your idea. And I totally agree that having a user who isn't paying is better than no users at all. I have since reached out to this set of accounts asking them if they'd like a discount.
Think about these users for what they are people who value your product but need a bit of nudge to pay for it.
A good pattern to think about is detect, act, grow.
First up you want to detect who is returning, this generally combines things such as device fingerprinting and analysing the user information along with other signals.
Once you detect them you can nudge them by giving them an alternative offer, a paid trial or a discount on their first month along with thanking them for coming back and trying again.
In the cases where the user may have a legitimate need for a second trial or to allow for the occasional false positive, I recommend having a contact support action prominently or offer a challenge such as SMS verification.
We wrote all about this at https://upollo.ai/blog/when-users-repeat-trials.
Using cards is a good way, but it might hurt your conversion, and for some products its natural to see the same card on multiple accounts.
At upollo.ai we are building an API to do this for you. To help convert those users into happy paying customers, helping you grow your business faster.
Make the maintained account more valuable than a new one. If you can get all the value right away without the need to accumulate data or pay upfront people will cheat the system.
I would suggest changing the model to a premium with a demo without trial, or limit your free trial functionally so it differs from the pro plan.
Credit card to start a free trial definitely sounds like the right way to go. I assume right now once the trial is over, they have to upgrade to keep using it, vs. the free trial automatically converting to a paid account after it's over?
Could just get rid of trials all together and offer a 30 day MBG, or go as far as doing an inexpensive trial option (not sure on your pricing, but seems like 3-9$ is the sweet spot for those types of things)
Our entry level plan starts at 8 USD per month or 7.13 EUR. I don't mind offering the service for 30 days for free. However, if there is no usage after a week, I reserve the right to release the resources that are dedicated to the customer's trial. I've though about asking for CC upfront, and offering the 30 day money back feature, but I agree with @combition - it might immediately scare some potential customers away. I'm confident that the product provides real value, and my mission is to build long-term customers that find real value in the product.
Are you actually purging user's content after a week or are you scared of angering them by doing so?
If the same people are making more than one free account, they aren't seeing any long term value in what you're providing if they are okay with losing their data.
Assuming this is all related to your PHP hosting platform, I'd be curious about the types of free accounts you're seeing. Free hosting by it's very nature attracts some pretty sketchy folks that are simply looking for a quick place to dump something on the web. Spam / scam sites, illegal material, etc.
Those type of users will /never/ convert and will always abuse the system by creating "disposable" accounts on your platform.
Limit the trial duration?
Limiting the duration of the trial doesn't address the fact that people are making multiple accounts. All that would happen there is that the new accounts would be created more frequently.
Or those people get pissed about the need to create the fake accounts more frequently ☺️
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.
I love this question! - Using your Laravel repo right now, how much time would it take you to get a working deployment if you had to start over fresh with Heroku?
I can guarantee Amezmo is faster in terms of the effort it takes to run a production ready PHP application. Amzmo also has virtually zero learning curve.
A few things Amezmo does for you that Heroku doesn't:
I would like you to check out Amezmo for your app.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.