Unlocking SaaS Free Trial Secrets: 15 Best Practices For Boosting Your Growth

The world of SaaS and software products is enormous, but there is one fact all businesses that are part of this grand industry need to remember: the success of their products and the very future of their companies depends on the number of paying customers. The more paying users you have, the better it will be for business. Unfortunately, you can’t expect customers to simply hand over their hard-earned cash without first getting a taste of your products.

So, how do you introduce your product to potential customers? Paid trials, freemiums, or free trials? Most SaaS entrepreneurs go for the last option, and with good reason.

Free trials are a perfectly valid way to showcase the value of your product, not to mention a risk-free method for customers to get a feel for what you are offering.

But before you get overly excited about free trials, it’s best to fully understand this pricing strategy. Adequately optimizing the free trial process can significantly reduce the risk of failure and keep those conversion rates growing. So, we'll be taking an extensive look at this topic by examining the following:

What is a SaaS Free Trial Strategy?

From the PLG perspective, the success of the product heavily (if not entirely) depends on the value it can deliver to its users. If, during the free testing period, the customer is convinced of the benefits, they will be more than happy to cover the cost of the subscription.

So, a SaaS free trial refers to a well-defined approach to offer a glimpse of the software they are selling and incentivize users to pay for access without giving away too much.

Generally speaking, a successful pricing strategy of this kind that sparks a huge number of free trial conversions includes the following:

A carefully set free trial period
Clear free trial expectations
Support throughout the entire free trial user journey
Dedicated customer success team
Analytics tools
Certain usage restrictions meant to encourage users to convert

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Free Trial Types & Length

The effectiveness of your free trial program relies on its type and length and how these factors do justice to your product. It’s essential to understand them and make the right choice for your app.

Free Trial Versions

- Paid Trials

While a less popular option than the traditional free version, the paid trials are exactly what you’d imagine. Prospective customers are required to provide their credit card details, and payment is made before the trial starts.

You might think that this is an insane practice that completely contradicts the entire idea behind product testing. Only it doesn’t.

A paid trial is alluring for SaaS companies because of the benefits it brings. Since converting users can be a challenging mission and can often lead to financial losses, paid product testing manages to differentiate between interested buyers and free riders.

SaaS funders can offset operational and development costs during the testing phase and have a better understanding of market demand. The more people sign up to test the product, the more certain you are that the product has a market value.

Plus, clients that are willing to pay to test your products are more invested in the entire process. They will either be convinced of the advantages your product brings and become your long-term users or provide you with insightful feedback that can help further improve your offer.

- The Freemium Model

They might both contain the free hook, but free trials and freemiums are quite different from each other. While the free trial model offers unlimited access over a limited period, freemium gives target customers limited access over an unlimited period.

When adopting this strategy, users interact with your product, accessing specific features, and have the option to upgrade their plan to really get to know its true power.

What aligns this model with free trial structures is the importance of carefully crafting the package to capture attention.

Your freemium offers need to strike a balance between providing value in the free version while being strong enough to entice users to upgrade to the premium version for enhanced benefits and features.

It’s not an easy thing to do, but once you’ve nailed it, the freemium option can bring you a whopping number of new customers.

- Reverse Trials

This approach is a combination between a free trial and a freemium. You are granting customers access to the premium features of your SaaS product and downgrading them when the trial period ends.

Reverse trials can be highly effective in terms of conversion rates because it gives your potential users the option to really experience your offer and get dependent on it.

And what’s even better about this model is that you don’t really lose your trial users if they decide not to move forward with the premium plan. If they downgrade and continue to use your freemium option, you are still given a chance to try converting them into paid customers later on.

This is not something you can do with free trial customers. Once they say no, they are gone for good.

The Optimal Trial Length

The success of your free trial depends on how strategic you are when crafting your offer. Boosting your free trial conversion rate heavily depends on how well you manage to showcase the value of your product.

Besides offering enticing features, you need to allow potential leads enough time to understand what your offering is and get hooked on it.

Free trials increase sales, but they can also build up your costs. So, you might be tempted to think that the shorter your free trial length is, the better. And you wouldn’t be wrong, in theory.

And there is a but here. SaaS products come in different forms, shapes, and complexity levels. And because of this, applying the shortest trial duration, which is 7 to 14 days, might not be enough to allow users to discover the product and convince them to complete the sign-up process.

The middle option of 14-30 days is almost vacation length, giving trial users enough time to try all your features and fall in love with your product. It’s the ideal timeframe for more complex products.

The extended trial period, 30+ days, is for hardcore SaaS tools, those that offer a labyrinth of features, where even the employee onboarding process takes forever. Probably in this situation, the best option would be to offer a freemium or a paid trial, given the extensive operational costs.

Deciding on the optimal trial length depends greatly on the complexity of your SaaS products. Yes, the faster you convince users to sign up, the better, but showing value is what matters, so be sure you offer sufficient time and evidence for this.

Also, always incorporate top-notch customer support and gather as much feedback as possible. If you aren’t going to gain a new user, at least get their opinion.

Conversion Benchmarks for SaaS Free Trials

How do you determine if free trial campaigns are successful? Simple, by considering benchmarks. So, let’s look at some numbers.

The conversion rate for opt-in free trials, meaning the users are not required to give their payment information, is:

From an organic traffic source: 18.2%
From a paid traffic source: 17.4%

The conversion rate for opt-out free trials, meaning the user will provide credit card details, is:

From an organic traffic source: 48%
From a paid traffic source: 51%

*It’s relevant to mention that in this situation since the free trial users already gave their payment details, their decision to pay for your service is often passive. That’s why the conversion rate is higher in opt-out free trials.

**Also, a user is considered to have converted when a month’s paid subscription is accepted. But the goal here is customer acquisition, so you need to analyze the success of your free trial campaign by looking at both retention and churn rates.

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