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6 Comments

Should I allow a trial customer to use old pricing?

I have a service (https://cobaltintelligence.com/secretary-of-state) where I charge per request. You pay a monthly fee, get X amount of requests and get charged for every request over the monthly quota at the same rate.

I recently changed my prices. Previously I had no monthly fee, it was strictly based on usage. My customers on these plans were paying pennies each month.

I have a customer who trialed my service during the old plan and is now asking if I can still honor this price for them.

Should I do it?

Pros:
More customer usage and product feedback is pretty welcome at this early stage
Make a customer happy

Cons:
His usage is probably going to be low enough that it will be a few dollars per month, max.

  1. 2

    Honor the original pricing. Makes a big difference to the customer.

    You’ll have plenty more customers. It’s best if your current ones like you and feel grateful for it, rather than ripped off because they missed the deal

    1. 1

      Yeah, it's what I'm going to go for. Thanks for the thoughts

  2. 2

    I'd go with honoring the old pricing but also making it clear that the customer would move to the then current pricing in 12 months.

    That way you don't screw over the customer (that's what it can feel like), but at the same time give ample warning time that in 12 months pricing will increase.

    I am in a similar situation and decided that keeping users active and close to me (and giving feedback) was much more important than the missed revenue.

  3. 2

    If they started their trial while you were still advertising the old pricing, that's what I would consider fair to offer. If not (or they abandoned their trial a while ago), I'd meet in the middle at a 50% discount on the monthly fee for the first 12 months.

    1. 1

      Yeah, I probably should honor the pricing. It doesn't hurt me too bad.

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