Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kill your credit card-less free trial.

observationdeck.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#21

Post by rfelix2121 »

relix wrote: post #15
lucb1e wrote: post #7

Just know that I won't be using your product. And most of my friends have no credit card either. Besides not being able to sign up, I also wouldn't want to. From what I heard about how credit cards work (as opposed to debit cards, which I think is the right term for the cards that we commonly use here), I'd never sign up for a free trial and give the developer (and any potential hackers) the permission to withdraw ar…

Then you're not the target market. If you have no credit card, it's very, very hard as a global website (i.e. not localized to the Netherlands) to accept money from you. So if that's the case, then they don't even want you as a customer, because you have no way of paying them.Giving you a free trial is then counterproductive.

exactly.

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#22

Post by arkitaip »

This strikes me as dangerous advice that's very business centric instead of focusing on how customers think and act. Contrary to what every business owner wants to believe, their business isn't particularly amazing or magical and customers have no problems abandoning them during evaluations if there's the slightest conversion obstacle. Not letting customers try out your service before entering credit card details? Yeah, that's a major obstacle. Better check out the competitor's product that's easier to use.

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#23

Post by arkitaip »

joewee wrote: post #19
lucian1900 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone likes spamming their users.

This isn't spam, its marketing to people who opted into receiving communications from you in exchange for a free trial of your service. As long as you stop shortly after the trial period there is nothing wrong with it in my opinion. I actually really enjoy a good series of marketing communications from a product I'm evaluating to 1) show me how others are using the product 2) point out a product benefit I might not h…

"I actually really enjoy a good series of marketing communications from a product I'm evaluating"

Said no user ever. As people interested in the business of software I think we're all a bit damaged when it comes to how much marketing nonsense we're ready to accept.

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#24

Post by ronaldx »

I would be more likely to sign up for full price. "Free trial - just add credit card" is a massive alarm bell for me.

In my experience, this type of free trial often means you want my credit card details so that you can make it as awkward as possible for me to cancel and maybe place dubious charges when I'm not looking.

That experience makes it difficult for me to sign up for a similar free trial.

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#25

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

arkitaip wrote: post #22

This strikes me as dangerous advice that's very business centric instead of focusing on how customers think and act. Contrary to what every business owner wants to believe, their business isn't particularly amazing or magical and customers have no problems abandoning them during evaluations if there's the slightest conversion obstacle. Not letting customers try out your service before entering credit card details? Ye…

Requiring credit card details is a good way to make people distrustful of you. In my case at least, I am extremely wary if I'm asked for them, because it always seems that the free trial is not actually free and the site owners want me to not come back but end up being billed unwittingly.

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#26

Post by chrisvineup »

It would seem that no one has addressed the idea that maybe the product doesn't hold enough value to the user to continue after a trial, I really don't think these sorts of metrics are applicable unless both the business model and the product are virually idential to his.

There are too many factors to consider, what is the product? being the most important, how is it sold to me, what is the closing process?

What this post says to me is: we want our users credit card details because there is a likelyhood they will forget to cancel their trial and we will at least screw them out of one month subs.

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#27

Post by joewee »

arkitaip wrote: post #23
joewee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't spam, its marketing to people who opted into receiving communications from you in exchange for a free trial of your service. As long as you stop shortly after the trial period there is nothing wrong with it in my opinion. I actually really enjoy a good series of marketing communications from a product I'm evaluating to 1) show me how others are using the product 2) point out a product benefit I might not h…

"I actually really enjoy a good series of marketing communications from a product I'm evaluating" Said no user ever. As people interested in the business of software I think we're all a bit damaged when it comes to how much marketing nonsense we're ready to accept.

Well, at least one person said it! ;)

I signed up for a free trial of bigcommerce to compare it to another e-commerce platform. I signed up and just never got around to using it. And then bigcommerce sent me a customer service email titled "Need some inspiration?" with examples of how other companies are using the service, three days later "Hear from other successful online merchants" with case studies of successful bigcommerce entrepreneurs.

Finally I received "Your trial is almost over — give me a call to keep your store" from their customer service rep, I'm sure this too was automated but I did end up on a telephone call with their regional sales rep and I'm now a paying user.

So it absolutely does work and you can provide value to trial users if you schedule your emails and the content of your emails correctly.

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#28

Post by shadowcats »

ramykhuffash wrote: post #2

Really interesting. I'd love to see some numbers from a site/product that actually A/B tested both options. If I had to use my credit card to get a free trial with Buffer for example, I would have never tried it (and eventually converted), but I guess it depends on the product.

I'd like to see a "PubMed" of case studies and findings like that.

X-posted on FS: http://firespotting.com/item?id=1144

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#29

Post by arkitaip »

joewee wrote: post #27
arkitaip wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I actually really enjoy a good series of marketing communications from a product I'm evaluating" Said no user ever. As people interested in the business of software I think we're all a bit damaged when it comes to how much marketing nonsense we're ready to accept.

Well, at least one person said it! ;) I signed up for a free trial of bigcommerce to compare it to another e-commerce platform. I signed up and just never got around to using it. And then bigcommerce sent me a customer service email titled "Need some inspiration?" with examples of how other companies are using the service, three days later "Hear from other successful online merchants" with case studies of successful…

I'll make a mental note that this might work for certain apps provided clear opt-out is given and the email frequency is reasonable.

Re: Kill your credit card-less free trial.

#30

Post by lucian1900 »

joewee wrote: post #19
lucian1900 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone likes spamming their users.

This isn't spam, its marketing to people who opted into receiving communications from you in exchange for a free trial of your service. As long as you stop shortly after the trial period there is nothing wrong with it in my opinion. I actually really enjoy a good series of marketing communications from a product I'm evaluating to 1) show me how others are using the product 2) point out a product benefit I might not h…

> in exchange for a free trial

So I pay for the trial by being spammed? What kind of logic is that? You're telling your users "buy this product to get spammed even more!". Are you sure you want your users' money? They aren't, at this point. Marketing must always be opt-in.

> I actually really enjoy a good series of marketing

communications from a product I'm evaluating I suspect you are in a small minority.

Post reply on HN