Development + marketing + support + offset the free users. For some complex tools it's not profitable to offer $5/month plans. A single support request would wi

Development + marketing + support + offset the free users. For some complex tools it's not profitable to offer $5/month plans. A single support request would wipe the profit made for that user. So would chasing invoices or any non-standard setup like dealing with purchase order forms or manual invoicing. My experience running a SaaS is that most support and questions come from the lowest pricing tier offered. > Often there is a free trial but it is very lacking and in order for it to be useful Free trial and most of freemium is to drive sales. The incremental cost of running the service (servers, storage, network etc) is minimal for 100 extra free users. Each one having 1 interaction with the support team is the cost to worry about. That said I wish more companies had $10 or $20 plans myself (my SaaS doesn't). Don't shy away from asking for a discount code or if there are unpublishes plans, e.g. for students, academia.