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Why Free Plans Don’t Work

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Re: Why Free Plans Don’t Work

#71

Post by steveklabnik »

jdc wrote: post #61
steveklabnik wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WoW also offers a lot of free months to players. Sign up a friend, both of you get free months. I almost said "and WoW isn't the best damn product," but that depends on your definition of 'best.' It almost mirrors the Mac/Windows thing. Connoisseurs tend to scoff their noses, yet they just keep on selling... WoW is a mediocre product executed _perfectly_.

http://www.metacritic.com/search/game/world+of+warcraft/resu... Define mediocre.

Maybe 'not innovative' would make more sense. WoW is a great game, and I have a ... long and very personal history with it. But it's a Blizzard game; their MO is to make the most average game possible, but make it incredibly polished. Many of my fondest memories are of Blizzard games, but (as of late) they're rarely innovative.

WoW is the gold standard of fantasy MMOs. It just doesn't do anything new or interesting; it only does a small set of things, but does them very, very well.

Re: Why Free Plans Don’t Work

#72

Post by loumf »

I am on the mailchimp free plan. One reason I think it works for them is that it's impossible to stay on the free plan if you are successful. It's nice to not have to pay while I'm building my list and don't get much value out of it yet. But every day, as my list grows, I know I'm going to have to pay -- at that point it would be silly to cancel.

Another reason it works for them, is that many of their customers probably start with a list -- in that case, it's not free (if you have over 500 subscribers)

Re: Why Free Plans Don’t Work

#73

Post by loumf »

neild wrote: post #66
revorad wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What consumer OS on affordable computers (that leaves Macs out) was/is better than Windows? It took the court system to slow them down. That was not for their dominant desktop OS, it was for using their monopoly to push IE and server products. You can call out Microsoft on dodgy anti-competitive behaviour in some respects, but you cannot take away credit for building the solid product that is Windows. Heck, even now…

OS/2.

OS/2 wasn't good enough, unfortunately. It was very expensive at the start -- and then there was OS/2 Warp which was ok, but not compelling. If the world were as web-enabled as it is now, it might have been fine -- the way it was -- you needed all of your software to work, and it didn't.

Even Windows 95 wasn't great (especially for programmers) -- it was Windows NT 4.0 that was good enough to use to get work done. It was a combination of being less crashy and having more native software available.

Re: Why Free Plans Don’t Work

#74

Post by loumf »

noverloop wrote: post #8

I think you should use a free plan if actively using the 'free' plan will eventually force the user to go to a paid plan. e.g. dropbox. If you just give your core product away for free then users will only switch if they need the extra features of the paid plan. You can still use 'free' for marketing, because total conversion rates with a free plan will probably be higher, just don't expect these 'free' customers to…

Exactly. That's why I think mailchimp works better than most. It's great to use the free plan to build your list, but once it's built, you will end up in a paid plan.

Re: Why Free Plans Don’t Work

#76

Post by gnaritas »

daleharvey wrote: post #60
revorad wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What consumer OS on affordable computers (that leaves Macs out) was/is better than Windows? It took the court system to slow them down. That was not for their dominant desktop OS, it was for using their monopoly to push IE and server products. You can call out Microsoft on dodgy anti-competitive behaviour in some respects, but you cannot take away credit for building the solid product that is Windows. Heck, even now…

I much much much prefer desktop linux, I would hesitate to call windows decent, let alone by far the best. Yet I have still found it as much as impossible to buy a computer without windows preinstalled.

> I much much much prefer desktop linux

So do I, but that Linux didn't exist when Windows became dominant; it came much later.

Re: Why Free Plans Don’t Work

#77

Post by barmstrong »

wolfrom wrote: post #58
shadowsun7 wrote: post #26

I loved this article, but after thinking about it for a bit I realize that there is an argument for going free. Two pretty strong ones, in fact. 1) If you want to get acquired - and we're talking about a big acquisition here - it would do to go free so you manage to score a big-enough user base to get noticed. And so the bigger company is interested in acquiring you not only for your technology, but also for your use…

What I take from the article and from your comments is that Freemium is a great idea for any product that relies on network effects, either to create a more useful product or to provide a strong exit. But with any other type of product, it would make sense to put the Freemium aside. It's probably easier to try paid only (with or without trials) first, rather than starting with Freemium and dealing with the fallout of…

Yep - you hit on the key difference: go freemium if your business needs network effects.

Marketplaces, social networks, ebay, etc - basically anything where the site becomes more valuable the more people use it.

Re: Why Free Plans Don’t Work

#78

Post by sentinel »

My 2 cents:

He did get a lot of exposure from the free plan, so at least at the beginning, a free plan is a great way to start a user base.

It is true that after that you will need to balance things out so that you don't get too many free users when compared to paying users.

But like the guy says, it's also about looking at your business and making a decision about whether this sort of free-plan offer is sustainable for your situation. For some companies it is and is part of the business plan, whereas for others it doesn't really help.

Re: Why Free Plans Don’t Work

#79

Post by chc »

steveklabnik wrote: post #71
jdc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.metacritic.com/search/game/world+of+warcraft/resu... Define mediocre.

Maybe 'not innovative' would make more sense. WoW is a great game, and I have a ... long and very personal history with it. But it's a Blizzard game; their MO is to make the most average game possible, but make it incredibly polished. Many of my fondest memories are of Blizzard games, but (as of late) they're rarely innovative. WoW is the gold standard of fantasy MMOs. It just doesn't do anything new or interesting;…

So, basically, Blizzard is the 37signals of game companies?

Re: Why Free Plans Don’t Work

#80

Post by run4yourlives »

The conclusion that "Free plans don't work" has been overly extended from data that doesn't suggest anything of the sort.

What the data does suggest is that his free plan is meeting a majority of his user's needs, and hence the "extras" that people get for upgrading are not selling.

What he needs to do is reduce the free plan so that more users' needs are addressed in one of the paid plans.

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