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My company operates on a freemium model. It's a big hassle, as documented in the section about not doing freemium, but it's also something we decided was fundam
by joisig 7y ago
My company operates on a freemium model. It's a big hassle, as documented in the section about not doing freemium, but it's also something we decided was fundamental to our main distribution channel which is the Chrome Web Store (breaking another of the rules in the article - but maybe check the last section).
I haven't run a non-freemium SaaS company, but I do see what benefits it would bring if we were able to operate on a typical 14 or 30-day trial model. The big ones that would bring are a much shorter sales pipeline and shorter feedback loop on ad spend.
- adz_6891 7y agoThanks for the clarification here! Since you are using freemium at the moment do you have some way of quantifying the hassle that this decision has created? It would be interesting to know more about how you navigate this kind of tradeoff since this is really what matters when it comes to detemerning whether a decision like freemium vs no-freemium is actually a good decision
- joisig 7y agoThere's some operational cost (for running servers and such), but not that high. There's considerable customer support cost. The main thing that I feel makes life tough is that the pipeline from, say, doing some paid ads and seeing the results is several months long, and the feedback loop on changes that can affect conversion rates and monetization is similarly very long. We've learned to cope with it but it would be nice to have a one-month feedback loop or shorter.
- adz_6891 7y agoThanks for sharing! Seeking a shorter feedback loop makes total sense.