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Ask HN: Should I enforce hard limits on my SaaS plans?

5 points by dabeeeenster ↗ HN
We recently launched our feature flag SaaS, https://bullet-train.io/

We have people signing up for trial accounts, which is great, but I've noticed a fairly large percentage of accounts are overflowing onto the paid tier but not paying. We charge based on the number of API requests our customers make, and currently have no hard limits in terms of preventing them from accessing the API, even if they go over their monthly plan limit.

Is there a best practise for this sort of thing? Should we start enforcing hard limits on the API? It seems kind of harsh, but I've been surprised at the number of people that just ignore my emails asking them to upgrade.

Thanks!

5 comments

[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 14.6 ms ] thread
onion2k
If you don't enforce limits then people will 'abuse' the free tier and it'll increase your costs, which is bad for your burn rate.

If you do enforce limits then you'll lose most of the users who are 'abusing' them, which is bad for your traction metrics.

Which you optimize for is up to you. I'd prefer to get more users even if it costs a bit (assuming it's not crazy amounts of money per user), and then work out a way to convert them in to paid accounts if possible..

troydavis
A middle ground: include a significant introductory bonus for X days or months (however long it currently takes for most new users to start actively using the product), in addition to the free plan. After a month or so, it becomes the standard free plan.
Gabs_Zavilla
Not sure about the technicality of it but I think it'd be good to enforce some limitation after a few reminders.
Gabs_Zavilla
Not sure about the technicality of it but I think it'd be useful to put a limit on after a few reminders that it'll happen if they ignore your emails.
NotPaidToPost
I would set a limit 10% above the publicised limit of the trial account.

When a user reaches the publicised limit you send an email informing them that they have reached the limit and should upgrade.