I'm not on board with this. It highly depends on the type of software or service you offer. Anecdotal example: I've used a lot of "free for students" or "free f

I'm not on board with this. It highly depends on the type of software or service you offer. Anecdotal example: I've used a lot of "free for students" or "free for personal use" software during my university time and switched a lot until I found the product that was best for me. When I started working I wanted to use the same product because I was used to it. That's why the company I worked for payed several thousand Euros for JetBrains IDEs for example and I even have a personal license for freelance work. Regarding the argument that free users don't convert: this does not mean the would have bought the product when there was no free plan. Maybe the product is not good enough, maybe it does not integrate in to the user's workflow, maybe they tried and moved on. And if I offer a free plan people have to apply for, what happens if I spend more time reviewing those applications as I had to "support" users on the totally free plan? If you offer a free plan: clearly state there is no official. Maybe offer a public forum where users can help each other. You'll probably find users using your product in a way you had not thought of and use this to advance your product. If you don't offer a free plan, have a long enough trial period and totally consider this: > Bonus points if you don't require payment details, as this may increase the friction of an employee of a larger business from trying it out without approval. In my company I simply can't give payment details without going to the whole way via department head and accounting department which usually takes a couple of days and is an annoying hassle. And privately am I extremely reluctant to give my payment data for a trial. I don't know how save it is, I don't know how easy it is to cancel my trial subscription and so on. Too many scams out there, can't be cautious enough.