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Ask HN: Is free trial or a limited free version better?

4 points by curiously ↗ HN
I have a SaaS (let's people extract data from pdfs and video files) that offer a 14 day trial. The trial is severely limited, the amount of job one can complete in this period is slow on purpose. I have some customers complaining that it's too slow and give up entirely. But I explain that this is the trial, you are sharing resources with other people.

Should I have a free plan instead with the same limited features? (slow and shared rate of job completion)?

Or should my trial plan have limits removed? Let them use it to the full extent for 14 days. My worry is that somebody will get their money's worth in 14 days and choose not to buy afterwards. Should I include 'demo evaluation' messages in the data they extract?

My rationale is to make it slow and limited until they decide to upgrade. But this might or might not be happening?

9 comments

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mtmail
People will always complain. We have people asking us for 100k transactions for a 'quick trial'.
davismwfl
I am not clear what your output is. If it was a PDF then you could add "Produced using a free trial by XXX, get your free trial here", or something along those lines. Then if they want that statement removed that is the upgrade. But this way it makes your product still look better in that the performance is timely etc.

Another option, limit the trial to 3, 5, 7 days, but let it be full extent.

If your output is csv or some raw data this adding a text message is pretty useless. Maybe you could instead limit the output to only the first page or first 3 pages, this way again it shows the full power and speed but limits the output to help entice an upgrade.

Just a few other points, with SaaS there are always people that will get what they need out of a free trial and never sign up, or they will intentionally sign up for a month and then cancel. I know I have done it and will do that in the future if I need to. So a certain amount of this type of churn is normal and expected. Maybe you also want to evaluate the numbers too. Lastly, if the people complaining aren't yet customers and are a small number of overall prospects then maybe this really isn't an issue and is just noise. Not all comments require a change.

iqonik
Why does the trial have to be 14 days? It sounds like you can get the value from your product in 7 days, perhaps less. Free trials are the period you have to convince them to hand over their cash, if that happens within the first minutes of using the software - get it then!

I would not advise offering a free version, they will be a drain on your support resources and you'll end up hating them. Or at least, I did :) - it is a lot easier to deal with an annoying user knowing they are paying your bills.

curiously
good point. well, the people that bought seem to make their decision very quick. less than a day sometimes within an hour of testing it out and seeing that it works. I actually don't know why I am allowing 14-days maybe because competitor does the same thing.
iqonik
It seems like you have proven that 24 hours would be more than enough. I would change it to:

"For a limited time, use * free for 24 hours", then inside the product, push hard from them to pay, have a countdown somewhere very visible for when their license expires.

it sounds annoying but I think it will increase your conversions tenfold.

curiously
another idea was maybe make the data extracted into an image so they can't copy and paste it freely.

The spreadsheet would be just images of text.

brudgers
The trial version is a product. If you make it suck, then you are spending your time and creative energy making a product that sucks.
toumhi
A free trial should help a potential customer decide whether or not the product is a right fit for his need.

So if you offer a slow, limited version is it helping your potential customer to do so? No, by making things difficult you're just manufacturing frustration.

From the other comments, it seems visitors need only a couple of hours to evaluate it. So why not make it a free trial available only for 1 day or for 3 uses?

Your fear("my worry is that somebody will get their money's worth in 14 days and choose not to buy afterwards) implies to me that you're not sure how your product fits in the user day-to-day workflow. If users would use it for 14 days and leave, the problem is not in the free trial, it is in failing to provide value and engage users.

So how can you change your product/free trial to engage users, getting them to realize value of your product, and creating habits for them to come back to your product?

I wrote an article recently into designing free trials, it might be of interest to you: http://www.saasfoundry.io/blog/design-saas-free-trial/

Good luck!

webstartupper
If you are offering a trial, let it be the best experience for your potential customers. A simple way of ensuring they do not abuse the free trial is to take credit card upfront (or setup a paypal subscription to start charging them 14 days later)

You could also have the trial based on how many files they can process instead of how long they have access. If it takes only one file for a potential customer to have the aha moment, enforce a "one file" trial. If it takes three, let it be three.

From what you've said, your service lets people extract data from files. Unless your customers have an ongoing need to process files, it might make sense to test a different pricing strategy instead of a SaaS one. This may also help you differentiate from your competitors who I presume have SaaS plans as well.

Also, if you can post a link to your service, maybe HN can give you better advice.