Ask HN: Examples of sites which start free and later switch to paid?

#1

Post by mgj » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 6:01 PM UTC

One example of such a site is Meetic, which started as a free dating site for a couple of months and then started charging a subscription.

How do you prevent customer backlash? How do you protect yourself against a competitor jumping in with a free alternative?

Re: Ask HN: Examples of sites which start free and later switch to paid?

#2

Post by cperciva » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 6:12 PM UTC

Tarsnap started out in free beta before moving to paid beta -- but this isn't quite what you mean, since at that point it was still a private beta (tarsnap became publicly available the month after it moved to paid beta).

I think as long as you make it clear from the start that your site isn't going to be free forever, you won't get any significant customer backlash -- simply because those people who would provide said backlash wouldn't sign up in the first place. Whether this is an effective business strategy is an open question, but it certainly seems like the most honest approach.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of sites which start free and later switch to paid?

#3

Post by byoung2 » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 6:22 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #2

Tarsnap started out in free beta before moving to paid beta -- but this isn't quite what you mean, since at that point it was still a private beta (tarsnap became publicly available the month after it moved to paid beta). I think as long as you make it clear from the start that your site isn't going to be free forever, you won't get any significant customer backlash -- simply because those people who would provide sa…

I think as long as you make it clear from the start that your site isn't going to be free forever, you won't get any significant customer backlash

Perhaps it would be helpful to put a price on it from the beginning, and offer invitation-only free accounts?

Re: Ask HN: Examples of sites which start free and later switch to paid?

#4

Post by joez » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 6:26 PM UTC

Pandora? They are in a very competitive industry but they were sticky enough that most people didn't go to a competitor.

Also Hot or Not. They started as a free dating experiment but when they were overrun by spammers they switched to a paid model. Membership was still free.

I don't know if any of that's relevant to you. These are "freemiums." I can't think of any examples off the top of my head on a completely free to paid. Maybe the lesson there is you need to keep something free?

Re: Ask HN: Examples of sites which start free and later switch to paid?

#5

Post by mbrubeck » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 7:29 PM UTC

MetaFilter introduced its lifetime $5 membership fee after initially being free. Existing accounts were grandfathered in, which does a lot to prevent backlash. (If I remember right, LiveJournal also grandfathered in existing members when they first introduced paid features.)

Re: Ask HN: Examples of sites which start free and later switch to paid?

#6

Post by cperciva » Thu, Oct 01, 2009, 8:31 PM UTC

byoung2 wrote: post #3

cperciva wrote: post #2

Tarsnap started out in free beta before moving to paid beta -- but this isn't quite what you mean, since at that point it was still a private beta (tarsnap became publicly available the month after it moved to paid beta). I think as long as you make it clear from the start that your site isn't going to be free forever, you won't get any significant customer backlash -- simply because those people who would provide sa…

I think as long as you make it clear from the start that your site isn't going to be free forever, you won't get any significant customer backlash Perhaps it would be helpful to put a price on it from the beginning, and offer invitation-only free accounts?

That's certainly an option in some cases. I couldn't do that for tarsnap, because at the point I started bringing people to test tarsnap, I didn't have the accounting code written yet.