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What to do when free trials don’t work?

1 points by brlimie ↗ HN
I run a business summary app with subscription prices of $50/year and $6.99/month. Unfortunately, some people sign up for the free trial that I offer but they use fake cards. So after 7 days the charge doesn’t go through. What can I do about this? I’m using stripe and Nodejs. It’s really frustrating because customers only want free. You try to charge but they insist on a free trial and when you give them that they abuse it. I guess I can do a money back guarantee but they don’t like that too. What do you guys think?

4 comments

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micahdeath
As long as the service stops when the 'Free Trial' expires and until payment then that would be the definition of "Free Trial".

If people don't pay, they may not like it, use it or it's too expensive for them. I sign up to see if I like a product/service and have to fight to remove the card so it doesn't charge me as most products/services aren't what I'm looking for.

sys42590
IMO asking for CC details upfront for a "free trial" in the hope that people forget to cancel is a very dark pattern.

A customer friendly free trial will have some limitations (e.g. stops working after a while, inserts a watermark into report, etc.) but will not ask for CC details upfront.

smca
Without knowing a little more about your business, an option could be to provide a free trial in the form of a one-off business summary. Then, once someone sees that they get value from it, charge for N uses thereafter.

Alternatively, allow users to generate free summaries but "paywall" the length, allowing them to subscribe to unlock past the "paywall". That way they see a preview and only pay when they have confirmation they like the service you're providing.

I like how https://www.gomoonbeam.com/pricing do it. Free to a word cap with no credit card required, then charge after that point. (They also run on Stripe.)

simonblack
A 'free-trial' that requires a Credit Card number is not a 'free-trial'.

Do some extra programming to ensure that the free-trial stops working on the target computer after a set time or number of uses*, and throws up a notification that the 'free-trial' has been used for X number of times or for X number of days and won't be available any more.

Your clients are then free to choose whether to buy your full system or try out some other system. This model is similar to what some News websites do. IIRC, "The New York Times".

* I believe a set number of uses is more useful than a set number of days. Some clients won't use the app every day, and at the end of a month (say), may only have used the app twice and so haven't got a worthwhile feeling of its value.