Why we ditched our free plan • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we ditched our free plan

#51

Post by watwut » Tue, Apr 15, 2014, 6:29 PM UTC

pingburg wrote: post #36

I've respected the HN community for a long time. This was a place where ideas could be shared and unlike many sites that were just an echo-chamber for a particular point of view, things were debated here on a much higher, respectful level. Lately, however, if you don't 'fit' a particular worldview, comments are down voted instead of being debated. Case in point. Here a company has provided insight into why they don't…

I think that problem is not removing free option. The problem is attitude to those free users. There was no reason to call them "freeloaders".

Saying "free plan turned out to be bad business decision, we can not really keep it" is one thing. Calling someone freeloader is another.

Re: Why we ditched our free plan

#52

Post by spacesword » Tue, Apr 15, 2014, 6:38 PM UTC

notastartup wrote: post #45

I think this article has merit but it fails to consider that free users may eventually upgrade to a paying account. Would it have been better to not offer a free plan to begin with? Instead have a 14 day money back guarantee with each plan. People with money and with intention will only use the product. If they don't like it they will probably ask for a refund but not many people actually do in reality because of the…

They have a 30 day free trial still.

Re: Why we ditched our free plan

#53

Post by robobro » Tue, Apr 15, 2014, 6:50 PM UTC

This is an advertisement.

Re: Why we ditched our free plan

#54

Post by username223 » Tue, Apr 15, 2014, 7:01 PM UTC

liamgooding wrote: post #32

tigroferoce wrote: post #22

Do you realise that in the upper right corner of the page you linked there a link titled "Try Track.io For Free"?

Original author here. Yeah but the subtle wording in that CTA is "Try". We have a totally free, no credit card required, 30 day free trial :-) Something which I probably need to point out in my original article, my bad

> subtle wording in that CTA

That kind of attitude doesn't exactly inspire trust. I had never heard of you before reading this article, and I'll never use you after. Good job.

Re: Why we ditched our free plan

#55

Post by Silhouette » Tue, Apr 15, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #44

liamgooding wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Original author here. Yeah but the subtle wording in that CTA is "Try". We have a totally free, no credit card required, 30 day free trial :-) Something which I probably need to point out in my original article, my bad

It sounds like you're making a lot of mistakes from not thinking things through. Do you really care about your business?

Do you really care about your business?

Right now, if I were looking for a service like this for one of my sites, I'd be more concerned about whether they care about my business. They sure don't look like it, with their apparent willingness to dump early subscribers when they were no longer convenient and to make potentially misleading or even downright deceptive claims in their marketing to attract new ones. :-(

Re: Why we ditched our free plan

#56

Post by danielweber » Tue, Apr 15, 2014, 7:07 PM UTC

"Free users require the most support" is something I have experienced. A co-founder gave a free copy of our more-than-one-thousand-dollar software to a colleague, who gave it to one of her students, who pestered us about why it wouldn't work on his VM.

Re: Why we ditched our free plan

#57

Post by dzabriskie » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 3:59 AM UTC

berkay wrote: post #25

liamgooding wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Gabemart, original author here. I understand your objection. The term 'freeloader' was used because they're taking stuff for free with no expectation to pay anything in the future. Also, an article that attracts discussion is a good thing, right? :) [edited]

An article attracts discussion is good? sure. I did not know about trak.io, now I do. The attitude in the article towards "freeloaders"? not so good. I won't argue whether it is better or not to have a freemium for "your" company. But commitment should not be broken so nonchalantly. Did you at least grandfather beta customers to a free plan? If not, you did a bait and switch, and that does not make me wanna do busine…

Yep, it's bait and switch, their "Priority Access Beta email" promised a free plan [0]. I actually _paid_ $29 for priority access to their beta, but never got around to installing their code; after seeing this I don't plan on it.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/cLSxw5m.png