One time pass vs 3 day free trial?

Hey IH,

I'm building ReplyGain which finds people on Reddit, Hacker News, X, and Bluesky who are actually looking for a tool like yours, then drafts a reply for you, you edit and post yourself.

I've been testing two ways to get people in the door.

3 day free trial, card required. You give your card, get 3 days free, it auto charges on day 4 if you don't cancel.

This filters out people who won't even give a card, but it doesn't filter out people who just want free access and plan to cancel before billing.

I still get some of those every week.

Paid 7 day pass. No trial, no auto renew, you just pay $12 and use it for a week.

This filters harder, because someone has to actually hand over money before they even try it. Got my first customer on this last week.

What I'm seeing so far is the pass brings in people who are more serious from the start.

They already decided it's worth a small bet. The free trial brings in more signups total, but more of them are just browsing.

On the abuse side, the free trial is where most of the risk is. Someone could use a random card, get 3 days, cancel, repeat with a new email.

The pass has almost no abuse risk since it's paid upfront.

Worst case someone pays once and never comes back, which isn't really abuse, that's just a low value customer.

Curious how others here handle trial abuse.

Do you require a card upfront, or skip trials completely and just do a paid pass like this?