To ask for credit card upfront on signup or not ?
I've gone through countless articles and mixed reviews.
Some old posts here that cite studies by Netflix that err to the side of keeping it upfront because it weeds out people who are just playing around and you only get serious users.
My hypothesis is, your product can be in one of 2 categories -
- Good to have
- Necessity
If its a good to have then you might want to skip asking for it upfront so people can enjoy your unparalleled experience.
If its a necessity (ie: very few good competitors / you have a very unique value) then keep it.
I believe my product at simplefunnel.io is in the latter.
What are your thoughts on this ? does anyone have a better hypothesis ?
I generally like credit card upfront to help keep out spam and less desired prospects. Especially as a 1 person team (I assume) you have enough on your plate already so it makes sense to want to vet who comes through the door for now. Not requiring credit card upfront is more of a marketing strategy for the top of the funnel in my mind.
For your product though (looks slick by the way!) I would think credit card upfront but an unlimited trial until they are ready to accept payments via your app makes sense. This way you avoid tire-kickers but also people don't need to worry about being charged before they are getting any value. Just my 2 cents ✌️
Thanks Ward, Currently its too people, me and my co-founder, but you're right, we want to weed out people who are not serious about using the product.
We've been contemplating which route to go in terms of giving a free trial, but from a user's point of view, if they've put in their credit card, it makes sense that we don't charge them till they're ready to go live.
Appreciate your feedback !
This is real simple. I've ran this experiment in multiple products.
Which part of your funnel do you want to optimize? Are you hurting for signups, or are you hurting for more trial -> paid conversions?
Because, whichever one you pick will absolutely cannibalize the other.
You will lose sign ups by a huge number if you require a credit card to sign up and test the product. But, this can be a good thing if you're bleeding money on freemium users (and it's holding your business back). And I mean explicitly you have high incremental costs, or you and your staff are so overwhelmed that you're neglecting other parts of your business.
It will improve your trial to paid conversion rate dramatically, since all of your users are essentially pre-qualified, reduce costs, and free you up to get a lot more done.
But, if this isn't your situation, don't do it. You should always aim to move your conversion bottleneck as far downstream as you can manage, and that means reducing friction in every early step of your funnel.
It's a gradual process of winning people over to part with their hard-earned dollars, and you can't expect it to happen overnight.
Some visitors will think you have an interesting product concept but no immediate need for your product. A trial account with no intention of purchasing creates a lasting memory that can serve you later when that user solves this need for themselves, or recommends your product to others.
Turning them off of the product before they even experience it doesn't do you any good.
Thanks futhey, this is absolutely on point, I agree with you.
We've decided to keep it free till they're ready to go live, and remove the credit card all together.
It is indeed the most user centric thing to do.
Appreciate your feedback !
Hi @namkam5!
I think it's hard to ask people to ask for a credit card without guaranteeing that they'll get some value from the trial.
For example, my magazine subscription product, Subsail, doesn't typically generate sales or income in a user's first 14 days because they are typically importing previous data, getting to know the product and finalising their account. In this case, it makes sense to give them a free trial and only ask for their credit card after they've achieved something (ie sales). With Subsail, you get 20 free subscriptions before being asked to start paying. This way I know that they're using the product and I've proved (to me and them!) that they get value from using it.
A product like Netflix tends to give users value immediately (they can log in and can start getting 100% of the product straight away). Most importantly here, the users know they'll get value
as soon as they input their credit card for the trial.
I think that's the most important factor to think about here.
I agree with you 100%, its not very user centric to be asking them for their card details before they've achieved anything,
But for us to wait for them to make their first sale would probably take us too long to validate a product market fit.
so we've decided to keep it free until they are ready to start accepting payments, till they're not ready to launch we won't charge them a dime, The moment they are ready to start accepting payments, we'll start their billing cycles.
If we get complaints, then we'll probably think about alternatives, but this is a pretty fair bargain.
tough situation. I run my product through a marketplace and I get a bunch of emails here and there about how it is unfair to ask for a credit card. The thing is that the marketplace asks for it so I don't have any control over it anywhere.
Looks like people have trust issue.
About weeding out scams, I had a "customer" who somehow bypassed Stripe payment and abused the system. But this is not common. Just have a system where you can easly detect and block anomaly.
Yes, Trust is a big part of the issue, I would say even in your case you can ask them for their credit card details when they decide to go live.
We used to have credit card on signup and decided to drop it, saw about a 20% reduction in drop-off rate during onboarding and we haven't looked back since. Perhaps we've had more 'test' accounts go through but still more eyes on the product, which is more important to us at this stage.
Aah interesting, This also depends on the type of users that would use your product. But I can imagine how that can be helpful.
We will try both probably err toward not keeping it in the beginning. I believe if we make the value proposition absolutely clear and people know what they are in for, before they sign up.
They should be comfortable putting it in.
But we will try both
Appreciate your feedback !
Definitely, the type of users would be a key point. Also whether its a B2B or B2C product. We've generally found that even in B2B, people didn't want to put their credit card upfront especially cause we are so accustomed to 'free' services all the time even if they are plastered with ads or have restrictions but it gives them a chance to get familiar with the product and evaluate it, on its own merits.
I think it's a fine line and you have decide it for yourself - perhaps even A/B test it! Prompt for a required credit card, optional credit card (perhaps with an incentive bonus if they opt in now) or no credit card on signup and see how well each segment explores your product, return and bounce rates. I think you'll get a good idea of which approach is worth the compromise within the first 50-100 users that go through it.
I think the level of trust is super important. And if you don't have great publicity or word of mouth, this is difficult to get. Personally, I'm very reluctant to give my credit card details. I only do it if I tried the product before, or I know it's a legit company, no matter how necessary can be a product.
I agree with this, but i believe trust can be generated through good onboarding and copy.
At SimpleFunnel for instance have decided to tell them in Big Bold Letters, that they will NOT be charged until they are ready to start accepting payments.
That they will be able to use our platform for FREE for as LONG as they like and start paying us when they're ready for launch.
Do you think that builds enough trust ?
I agree, good onboarding and copy can generate trust. But then it goes beyond the landing page as users have already signed up for something. But again, I personally wouldn't put my cc details until at least I have some recommendation from someone I trust (or a whole bunch of people for a big brand). And if it's free as long as I like then I wouldn't understand why I'd have to put my cc details. I'm thinking "why would I trust you if you don't trust me?".
Yeah this is a finicky terrain also depends on the type of users we are targeting.
We will experiment with both and probably post back
Appreciate your feedback!
great! looking forward to hearing your results! good luck
As a user I don't like this scenario: enter cc just to try something, then you're automatically billed every month unless remember to cancel. I am okay with the scenario where cc is entered for future usage if you decide but it's not automatic opt-in.
btw, your product looks compelling and design looks clean and appealing. Found a small copy/paste error in the links in the footer - all of them open a mail provider, including 'pricing', 'support', and 'privacy policy'
Thanks bhumi , good catch !, we almost forgot about it.
Yes, from all the feedback we're getting, We will go this route, It'll be free till they start using it in production.
We don't want any of our users to be worried about being charged before they get value.
Appreciate your feedback!
sure, you're welcome!