Don't Offer a Free Plan • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#31

Post by Proziam » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:13 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17

jonpurdy wrote: post #13

Anecdata: Trello and Jira both have free plans that I used that caused me to recommend them for paid usage at multiple companies I’ve worked with. Those free plans resulted in $xx-$xxxx monthly subscriptions. Asana has a paid plan with a 5-user minimum limit. I never bothered to even try it since I wouldn’t have the extended time to play with it. As a result it never even got mentioned to companies I’ve worked with.…

The article specifically mentions free trial periods as being a good idea.

Different anecdata here. Trial periods suck.

My experience is that I rarely have enough time to determine if I really like the service or if it's still just a shiny new tool to play with. I need more than 14-30 days to actually put in the work to understand a reasonably complex tool (say a CRM system) well enough to make a commercial recommendation.

Obviously this issue doesn't apply to all SaaS companies but it's probably common enough to be worthy of consideration.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#32

Post by prawn » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:13 AM UTC

A lot of what I use (including as a paying user), I use because I was able to start on a free tier and then upgrade as my needs grew. DaVinci Resolve, Sublime Text, GSuite, WeTransfer, Dropbox, iCloud, Sequel Pro, etc. I didn't try Premier, Final Cut, various text editors or paid-only cloud services.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#33

Post by dataflow » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #27

mmaunder wrote: post #10

It is sad but true that users that pay less, or zero, are more demanding on customer support and make unreasonable demands via social. Had a guy this week using our free product that has 90% of the paid products features berating us on Twitter for not being 100% free and demanding we convert and rely on donations to support our 40 person team. Makes me regret having a free offering. In my 20 years doing software star…

“ demanding we convert and rely on donations” People whining for more is fairly normal. Wanting it for everyone in perpetuity is new. Does everyone think most businesses are somehow ad supported?

> Does everyone think most businesses are somehow ad supported?

Not necessarily ads, but they might assume most businesses will monetize whatever info they get their hands on however they can. Especially so for free offerings ("you are the product" etc.).

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#34

Post by detaro » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17

jonpurdy wrote: post #13

Anecdata: Trello and Jira both have free plans that I used that caused me to recommend them for paid usage at multiple companies I’ve worked with. Those free plans resulted in $xx-$xxxx monthly subscriptions. Asana has a paid plan with a 5-user minimum limit. I never bothered to even try it since I wouldn’t have the extended time to play with it. As a result it never even got mentioned to companies I’ve worked with.…

The article specifically mentions free trial periods as being a good idea.

both examples given specifically have free plans, not just trial periods. A trial period is useful for specific evaluation, but not for having experience with a tool and recommending it on that basis.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#35

Post by mNovak » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

jonpurdy wrote: post #13

Anecdata: Trello and Jira both have free plans that I used that caused me to recommend them for paid usage at multiple companies I’ve worked with. Those free plans resulted in $xx-$xxxx monthly subscriptions. Asana has a paid plan with a 5-user minimum limit. I never bothered to even try it since I wouldn’t have the extended time to play with it. As a result it never even got mentioned to companies I’ve worked with.…

Agreed. I think free tier user limits (where appropriate) are much better than trial periods for evaluation. I'm busy, and if it's not mission critical, evaluating this piece of software may not be the only thing on my to-do list; I may hardly get around to it in 2 weeks.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#36

Post by CodeWriter23 » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

soared wrote: post #4

Most MBA programs go over why you don’t want a small number of high paying clients. It’s the opposite of diversification and is a risk factor. In the situation they claim as bad losing 1 clients means losing 10% of your revenue!

That’s only part of the picture though. Customer service is expensive, and I’m sure those MBA programs you speak of acquaint students with the practice of a cost:benefit analysis.

I would also point out your logic about his revenue stream comparison falls apart when you double the numbers to 2,000 vs 20 customers.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#37

Post by vincentmarle » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

Like with all things in life, it depends on the context and the use case.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#38

Post by freddie_mercury » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #12

9dev wrote: post #11

The article is missing out a huge argument in favour of free plans: the opportunity to generate data. This doesn’t even need to be done in a shady manner - imagine analysing what users usually type in free form boxes, normalise that and build a tag hierarchy, for example. There’s a billion way to make a free plan useful - it’s not just a curtesy to your users!

Nah. I had a million installs of a web widget and was drowning in data doing over a billion impressions a month and we had to pivot or starve to death. Nice idea but not true in my experience unless you already have customers lined up and are intentional about what you launch in order to generate the specific data they are hungry for.

Yeah, I've worked at places with millions of users and product managers are drowning in data. It honestly doesn't really make it much easier to build features that actually drive revenue.

To a large extent, this is why advertising (and related data selling) is so widespread: because it is obvious how to make money from the data. Someone said they'll give you $1,000 for a list of all the users who are male, in Canada, and have typed in stuff about Python.

The parent's example about tag hierarchies... That sounds like exactly the kind of nifty feature I've seen launch a dozen times that has precisely zero impact on revenue.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#39

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:15 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #17

jonpurdy wrote: post #13

Anecdata: Trello and Jira both have free plans that I used that caused me to recommend them for paid usage at multiple companies I’ve worked with. Those free plans resulted in $xx-$xxxx monthly subscriptions. Asana has a paid plan with a 5-user minimum limit. I never bothered to even try it since I wouldn’t have the extended time to play with it. As a result it never even got mentioned to companies I’ve worked with.…

The article specifically mentions free trial periods as being a good idea.

[deleted]

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#40

Post by boomboomsubban » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 1:15 AM UTC

Offer no free plan but releasing it as free software avoids your cost per user, prevents complaints about paid features, and allows you and your users to give back. Seems like it should at least be mentioned as an alternative.