Would you put ads on the free version of your SAAS app?

It depends where you want to go.

Adding ads to your tools will make it look cheap and not attract premium customers.

By the way, GSuite does not have ads, GMail does and it's not the same product :)

That's a very interesting question and I would also like to hear your opinion on this in the context of mobile apps that offer subscriptions.

I'm currently working for a company which has an app with the freemium business model. The app is a free download but offers a one time purchase for additional features. According to analytics, the main reason for people to upgrade it to "remove ads".
As the app has quite a lot of free users (95%), so the app revenue is also really good - more or less the same as the IAP revenue.

So with this in mind and to answer your question, it never came to my mind that putting ads on the free version would reduce the quality of the product (as the app I'm referring to is also high quality), its just a good selling point.

I'm working on my own app at the moment and, at least until now, wanted to do the same with the only difference that I'm planning to offer a subscription.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

We have long debated this with StatusGator but it doesn't feel right.

With more than 95% of our users on free plans, it could be potentially lucrative. We send email notifications when a service is down, so it would be the perfect opportunity to offer advertising space to competitors of that service. "AWS is down. Have you tried Azure?" But this feels pretty slimy and not something I'd personally want to see.

So we continue to focus on increasing revenue other ways... like improving our conversion from free to paid.

As I am working on an MVP which is also SAAP, Today I was thinking on same point that why makers do not place Ads on the free tire?

Something like user can use the tool-free but with ads and if he/she wants to remove it then pay.

For you maybe you can do A/B test by placing ads and get feedback if they want to see it or not?

Andy!

I'm looking to do exactly this (with a similar sort of tool to InfluenceGrid too). What was your verdict on this decision and how did it go for you? :)

I agree with everyone ads can detract and feel cheap. If it's a truly relevant company, you could try framing it differently, 'Brought to you by' or 'Sponsored by'. Making it look classy and part of the design, rather than making it look like an ad.

This gives you the opportunity to hand-pick relevant, decent sponsors, and also reach out to them, plenty of companies have budget for sponsoring e.g. Mailchimp.

In the early days of https://niice.co/search we did this, the top-left tile in search results was a sponsored by and brought in decent revenue before the SaaS aspect was up and running.

I was considering putting ads on the free version of my upcoming project. The project is free forever, with paid features available so no sort of trial or anything like that. If that's the case, I think it's fine having ads, and as a user I understand I'm putting up with the ads in exchange for a free product.

In terms of paid products I'd absolutely not put them there. Then it feels like cash grab, and imo undermines the quality. I also wouldn't put ads in a product that offers like a 7 day trial, once again I feel they detract from the goal of the trail which is to acquire a new subscriber.

I wouldn't.

I feel like putting ads in a SaaS app is tacky and cheap. Then again, I guess it's all about execution. Are they static ads, does the user have to interact with them?

Also, big WTF to the idea that they need to pay to remove ads. What? How to make a shitty product 101.