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Ask HN: How to best handle users creating throwaway accounts?

Context I've created a SaaS product which has a free tier and an unlimited tier. The users seem to like the product and find it useful. At least useful enough to keep creating free accounts instead of upgrading when they reach the free monthly limit. Aside from creating an "email verification" flow, what kind of techniques do other products use to prevent this kind of abuse? Note: I realize the irony with my HN name!

jakozaur 10y ago
I just blacklisted few email domains which fixed 90% of problems. Some radical step if you target big business is disallow free email providers (@gmail.com). That may create some backslash, but if you target enterprise that allow you to focus.
- throwaway214625 10y ago
  Thanks-- that's something I hadn't thought of. It appears most of the users don't use free providers so that may be an option.
rpeden 10y ago
It sounds like the free tier lets people do the same things as the paid tier and only limits quantity, so people are just stacking free accounts to get around paying for it. Maybe this isn't the best way to segment your market? It depends heavily on your product and how it works, but perhaps there's a way to make it so that the free tier lets people try the product and understand how it works. You could then make it so that some extra functionality is available only to paid users. An example of this is Webflow[1]. A free accound is fine for mocking up a website, but you can only have one project, and you can't export the HTML and CSS. This works well, because I was able to use a free account to see how the product worked, and when I decided I wanted to export what I had created, I was happy to upgrade to a paid account. You can also see this at play in the Wordpress plugin market. There are plenty of plugins that have a free version available, and also offer a premium version that includes support and extra features. The common thread here is that upgrading to the paid version of the product includes more features, not just more quantity. This approach may or may not work for your product. Even if it doesn't right now, perhaps there are features you could add only to the paid tier that would entice people to upgrade? [1]https://webflow.com/ https://webflow.com/

jakozaur 10y ago

I just blacklisted few email domains which fixed 90% of problems. Some radical step if you target big business is disallow free email providers (@gmail.com). That may create some backslash, but if you target enterprise that allow you to focus.

throwaway214625 10y ago
Thanks-- that's something I hadn't thought of. It appears most of the users don't use free providers so that may be an option.

rpeden 10y ago

It sounds like the free tier lets people do the same things as the paid tier and only limits quantity, so people are just stacking free accounts to get around paying for it. Maybe this isn't the best way to segment your market? It depends heavily on your product and how it works, but perhaps there's a way to make it so that the free tier lets people try the product and understand how it works. You could then make it so that some extra functionality is available only to paid users. An example of this is Webflow[1]. A free accound is fine for mocking up a website, but you can only have one project, and you can't export the HTML and CSS. This works well, because I was able to use a free account to see how the product worked, and when I decided I wanted to export what I had created, I was happy to upgrade to a paid account. You can also see this at play in the Wordpress plugin market. There are plenty of plugins that have a free version available, and also offer a premium version that includes support and extra features. The common thread here is that upgrading to the paid version of the product includes more features, not just more quantity. This approach may or may not work for your product. Even if it doesn't right now, perhaps there are features you could add only to the paid tier that would entice people to upgrade? [1]https://webflow.com/ https://webflow.com/