How would you measure a free utility when there is no signup?
Most startup advice assumes there is a funnel.
Visitor comes in, signs up, activates, maybe pays later. That makes sense for SaaS. It gets weird when the product is a free utility and the "successful" user might show up, copy one thing, leave, and still be happy.
I’m working on a small site called SnakeBaby. It is a copy and paste tool for cute symbols, kaomoji, aesthetic bios, username ideas, and Unicode text styles.
There is no signup. The site is mostly SEO pages. I also built a Chrome extension so repeat users can search, copy, save favorites, and reuse recent items from the browser toolbar. The extension stores everything locally and does not ask for website access.
The part I’m stuck on is what to optimize for.
Traffic is easy to measure, but it feels shallow. Copy events are closer to the actual use case, but they do not tell me whether someone found the product useful enough to come back. Extension installs might be the best retention signal, but only a small percentage of web users will install an extension.
So I’m curious how other people would think about this.
If you were growing a free utility like this, what would you treat as the main signal?
- Copy events
- Returning visitors
- Extension installs
- Organic page growth
- Something else entirely
Also, would you keep it account free for as long as possible, or add optional accounts later for saved collections and personalization?
Project link for context: https://snakebaby.com/
I would not treat one metric as the main signal here.
For a free utility like SnakeBaby, the successful user can absolutely copy one thing and leave happy, so judging it like SaaS activation will make the product look weaker than it is.
I’d split the signals by user depth:
copy event = immediate utility
repeat visit = habit forming
extension install = high-intent retention
saved favorite/recent reuse = real stickiness
organic page growth = acquisition health
The one I’d watch most closely is probably “copy depth per session” plus return rate by page type.
Someone copying one symbol from a search page is useful traffic. Someone copying multiple bios, usernames, or kaomoji in the same session is closer to a creative workflow. That user is much more likely to install the extension later.
I’d keep it account-free for now. Optional accounts only make sense once users are clearly trying to build collections across devices. Before that, accounts might add friction to a product whose magic is instant use.
The cleaner question might be: which pages create one-time copy behavior, and which pages create repeat creative behavior?
That split would tell you what to optimize without forcing a fake SaaS funnel onto the product.