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Don't Offer a Free Plan

nofreeplan.com

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Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#81

Post by pfranz »

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.…

Similarly, I work in industries with fairly expensive software. Off and on they'll offer free, limited educational versions. When a new version comes out I'll often dabble with it at home if there's a free version available--there have been times where it wasn't offered, so I didn't. Often, it's new or updated features. Because my day to day work is getting things done I'm less likely to risk a new and untested approach and we stick with older software versions until we have to.

Without a free version I'm less likely to try out a new version or deviate as much as I would if there's not a clear benefit. It makes the software stickier (assuming they did improve it).

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#82

Post by musicale »

prawn wrote: post #73
kccqzy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange that you mention Final Cut. It's clear to me that the free, limited edition of Final Cut already exists by the name of iMovie. (This was after Final Cut Pro X, not 7.)

I tried iMovie at some point but it was too limited to assess the featureset that would be required. DaVinci Resolve's free tier gives you basically everything short of 5K export, built-in noise reduction, and a couple of other things - easily proved itself indispensable so I happily upgraded. You also get some great forum help from high-end Resolve users that is relevant to those learning.

This supports the parent post and does not refute it.

Although you may have been unsatisfied with iMovie, it is in fact the free tier of Final Cut Pro, much as GarageBand is the free tier of Logic.

Interestingly enough, iMovie and GarageBand even have iPhone and iPad versions (though sadly there's no iPadOS version of FCP/Logic yet.) Though Final Cut Pro and Logic do run amazingly well on an M1 Mac mini.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#83

Post by vmception »

Yes, every resource matters more to poor people

Yes, you can simply not cater them

Leaving a void in the market means someone else can consider making a competitor and inheriting all those problems, and maybe they have a good time

If you are that competitor, ignore this article

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#84

Post by phkahler »

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?

Having all that "free" shit in app stores doesn't help. I wish Apple and Google would require apps to charge some minimum.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#85

Post by prawn »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #48
prawn wrote: post #32

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.

The article talks about the costs, suggesting the net result is often bad. Basically they are saying, "Ignore end users online because they are only seeing and talking about one half of the equation." All you've done is essentially say, "I'm an end user online who only knows one half of the equation but you should ignore costs!" It just feels like a failure to engage with the point the article is actually making.

I am involved with a number of products which range between paid-only, freemium and free, so I'm familiar with the pros/cons. I know both sides of the equation but was offering comment on one half.

The author appears to have a freemium product in their portfolio, and acknowledges there can be reason for that.

Countless established or major players (Dropbox, Basecamp, Trello, etc) seem to make use of the freemium angle. Suspect there's something in that and that a free tier is a necessary evil at times.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#86

Post by woofie11 »

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.…

My experience too.

ALWAYS have a lifetime free plan. It's okay to make it a useless lifetime free plan (your data disappears every 2 weeks; you have a 3 email per day quota; etc.). It just need to be enough to seriously evaluate your product, and if it has APIs, to develop to them. There are sometimes good reasons to do more, and sometimes not. But that's the minimum.

In the early days of AWS, I would build thing on AWS' free tier, and they turned into products later. One product is making AWS millions (literally). AWS lost out when I changed orgs, my one-year free tier quota was gone, and I couldn't do the same at future orgs.

At big organizations, the overhead of a PO is sufficient that you don't do it unless you have a compelling business case. Free plan allows you to build a business case over a weekend.

I've gone free->paid many times.

It's worth noting the figures here. The case for a free plan is much more compelling for a Fortune 500 company who will sign a million-dollar contract than for a small business.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#87

Post by whatever_dude »

namrog84 wrote: post #62
ben509 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think trials can be improved for services where you can discern whether the user is directly interacting with it. You give them 100 days of usage, and then decrement a counter when they interact with the site the first time each day.

BeyondCompare does this and I've been slowing decrementing my 30 day usage trial for almost a year. I'm likely going to buy when it gets near zero but I use it so infrequently it just hasn't caused justification to purchase. But if it wasn't for this extended usage decrement counter id have likely just gone with something else after 30 day trial of using it but 1 day

Tangent, but BeyondCompare is one of the few tools I'm proud to have purchased. I use it all the time for file and folder diff. It has been invaluable for me and my work on both Windows and macOS.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#89

Post by woofie11 »

ben509 wrote: post #43
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.…

I think trials can be improved for services where you can discern whether the user is directly interacting with it. You give them 100 days of usage, and then decrement a counter when they interact with the site the first time each day.

I'm not a big fan of that. You disincentive usage.

Daily quota is the way to go. Amazon free micro instances are a perfect example. Enough to build. Not enough to go to production.

Re: Don't Offer a Free Plan

#90

Post by protoduction »

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.…

Hi, author of the page here. I didn't expect this to end up so high on HN.

You're right that there is a place for free plans, the article I wrote is probably too one-sided. I planned on adding an extra section near the end for some cases when a free plan does make sense (I will wait until it is no longer discussed here).

Other than the "influencer" angle you mentioned, it also makes sense for products where you can offer the first X units for free, and many will have the desire for more (2 free designs for a website builder, or the first 10 levels free in a video game).

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