Validated the MVP. Now comes the scary part: The Login Wall.
For weeks, my AI bridge (Tasquery) has been the Wild West. 100% stateless, no login required, zero friction. Devs loved it, which perfectly validated the MVP.
But to build a sustainable SaaS, I had to introduce friction. Today, I finally shipped Google Auth.
To keep the "Aha! moment" alive, I actually increased the free character limit (to 1000). But the real workflow firepower is now gated behind a free account:
2000 character limits (for long meeting notes)
1-click formatted copy (Jira, Slack, Markdown)
Advanced AI "Refine" actions
The scariest part? I also finally added Google Analytics today. I'm terrified to look at the real-time drop-off now that the wall is up. 😅
Fellow indie hackers: How bad was the initial churn when you first introduced auth to your free tools? Did your power users happily sign in?
we went through the same debate with our API tools. ended up keeping the core feature completely free with no login — you paste a URL and get the SEO audit instantly. the paid tier adds depth (detailed reports, bulk scanning, export). the zero-friction free tier is what gets people to trust the product. once they see it actually works, the login wall for pro features feels fair instead of annoying. for your analytics fear: watch the ratio of free-to-auth users, not the total drop-off. the ones who bounce at the wall were never going to pay anyway. the ones who sign in are your real audience. id keep the aha moment as frictionless as possible and only gate the workflow features.
Thank you for your insights, you're right, I should focus on the free-to-auth users conversion.
I definitely want to keep the main zero-friction feature free also for anonymous users, that was my core plan from the beginning.
I also don't like such apps, where you are prompted with login form in the moment you click anything on the landing page.