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> Free trials should not require a credit card. Collecting your payment information is an obvious red flag that you will be billed as soon as the free trial per

> Free trials should not require a credit card. Collecting your payment information is an obvious red flag that you will be billed as soon as the free trial period ends. I remember many people on HN defending this pattern saying that they are not interested in people who don't want to provide their CC details, that they are bad customers, they just want a free ride, and they are not sorry for setting it up like this. Oh well. I guess with time more people get burned and will finally learn the hard way this is just one of many grey patterns.

rhizome 5y ago
This is exactly right. For years it was conventional business wisdom and best practice to focus on getting the CC. We could probably find some pretty embarrassing (for the web industry) threads if we wanted to look.
human 5y ago
Requiring a credit card for a trial is fine, as long as you don’t convert automatically to a paying membership. And if you do, please send me a reminder a week before at least.
- dhimes 5y ago
  I'll add: A reminder with an opt-out link.
rapind 5y ago
How is this a dark or “grey“ pattern. Are they being sneaky about it? At most it could be a signal that a business intends to be a douche, but that’s only because douchey companies ruined it. Just like duchey free customers ruined that for everyone. My employer probably thinks payroll is a “grey” pattern by this logic.
- mitchdoogle 5y ago
  It's a dark pattern because they claim the trial is free, but ask for a credit card. They are betting on the user forgetting to cancel, or worse, actually make it difficult to cancel. If it was just about giving the user a chance to try a product, they wouldn't need to collect credit card information. Some people claim it helps to prevent abuse. Maybe, but there are other, user-friendly ways to prevent abuse.
  - rapind 5y ago
    I disagree. I can't see how this is a dark pattern / trick. They are just saying if you want to participate in the trial they need to validate that you're serious about it. If you don't like these upfront terms, then you can bail right there and then. If however they are being sneaky about the CC requirement, or actually bill you a month later, then I could see that qualifying as a dark pattern (or straight up fraud). I probably wouldn't move forward as a potential customer myself once the credit card requirement pops up unless I'd already done my research and was pretty sure I wanted to use that product. They could lose potential customers, but they also probably eliminate a massive amount of customer support... which maybe they just can't afford yet. Customer support isn't free.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  > Just like duchey free customers ruined that for everyone. But you need to factor this in. Nobody forces you to offer free trial. But if you do, you need to accept the fact that there are people who are going to use your product for free to the maximum available capacity. In the old days, it wasn't much of a problem: you basically gave away pieces of software that stopped working after a certain period usually with limited functionality. There were many variants of this model: demo, trial, shareware. These free users didn't incur any direct costs for you (often someone else would do that for you, like computer magazines). Now, with SaaS, you need to provide computing resources for them - but this is your marketing cost. This is the problem of the model, not the customers. If you tell them they can use it for free for 2 weeks, they have the full right to use it and stop, period. They are not duchey unless they abuse the system by doing something clearly wrong, e.g. exploiting a bug in your software.
  - rapind 5y ago
    Support costs need to be factored in too. Free customers can often have an enormous customer support cost. They'll send emails to sales@company.com if they can't find a support email with questions along the lines of "How do I do x..." (which might be completely covered by the documentation they didn't read), or "I have a suggestion...". You have to weigh the pros and cons. In some cases the cons might outweigh the pros and so you further qualify your free users, for example by requiring a Credit Card. This can be a big problem in freemium (and open source) type products.
CPLX 5y ago
This one doesn't bother me. In this scenario they're providing a real actual product that presumably they've worked hard on and has value. The free trial is their way of demonstrating that they have faith it's a good product and I'll want it. My credit card is a way of demonstrating that I'm a real customer that will pay if I do turn out to value it. That seems like a reasonably balanced transaction on both sides, not sure it fits into this framework. There are so many far far worse practices out there.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  > My credit card is a way of demonstrating that I'm a real customer that will pay if I do turn out to value it. I see your point but there are many problems with this approach. 1. First, I'm not sure if I'll actually pay. It will happen only if your product manages to convince me it is what I need, that there are no bugs, that the support quality is good enough etc. 2. For core functions related to my business, if available, I'll always choose non-SaaS solution over SaaS-based to avoid vendor lock-in and unnecessary dependence. So, the conclusion of (1) and (2) is that you need to convince me to try it and stay. You will increase your chances by making the CC data part skippable. 3. I burned a few times in the past (with shady cancellation polices). Even if you are a honest business, I have no idea what expect. Why don't you let us get into a closer relationship instead of putting your hand in my pocket before we even got properly introduced? 4. Very often I just need to understand what the project is about. Sorry, most marketing descriptions are utter garbage and the exceptions are quite rare. So I really need to try to even consider the purchase. And I do pay - I pay with my time and attention that I give to your project. If you block this possibility, you lose, not me.
dqv 5y ago
It’s about what pisses off fewer customers. If I was stubborn and believed everything I read on HN about customers, I would continue to piss off a lot of people by designing under the assumption that I should only get CC details at the end of the trial. For certain types of customers, it is surprising and annoying to have to fill out CC info at the end of a trial. The customer gets the notice the trial is ending soon, but ignores the part about adding CC info to keep using after the trial. Then the day comes, we get them on the phone to ask if they will stay with us, they say yes but the person who has control of the CC is gone for the day. You’re not really going to turn it off are you? Sorry, but we have to. So the easy solution is to make the credit card form recommended but skippable. Skippers just need to know that the trial won’t be extended if they can’t pay. In either case, they still need to give the OK to charge at the end of the trial.

rhizome 5y ago

This is exactly right. For years it was conventional business wisdom and best practice to focus on getting the CC. We could probably find some pretty embarrassing (for the web industry) threads if we wanted to look.

human 5y ago

Requiring a credit card for a trial is fine, as long as you don’t convert automatically to a paying membership. And if you do, please send me a reminder a week before at least.

dhimes 5y ago
I'll add: A reminder with an opt-out link.

rapind 5y ago

How is this a dark or “grey“ pattern. Are they being sneaky about it? At most it could be a signal that a business intends to be a douche, but that’s only because douchey companies ruined it. Just like duchey free customers ruined that for everyone. My employer probably thinks payroll is a “grey” pattern by this logic.

mitchdoogle 5y ago
It's a dark pattern because they claim the trial is free, but ask for a credit card. They are betting on the user forgetting to cancel, or worse, actually make it difficult to cancel. If it was just about giving the user a chance to try a product, they wouldn't need to collect credit card information. Some people claim it helps to prevent abuse. Maybe, but there are other, user-friendly ways to prevent abuse.
- rapind 5y ago
  I disagree. I can't see how this is a dark pattern / trick. They are just saying if you want to participate in the trial they need to validate that you're serious about it. If you don't like these upfront terms, then you can bail right there and then. If however they are being sneaky about the CC requirement, or actually bill you a month later, then I could see that qualifying as a dark pattern (or straight up fraud). I probably wouldn't move forward as a potential customer myself once the credit card requirement pops up unless I'd already done my research and was pretty sure I wanted to use that product. They could lose potential customers, but they also probably eliminate a massive amount of customer support... which maybe they just can't afford yet. Customer support isn't free.
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> Just like duchey free customers ruined that for everyone. But you need to factor this in. Nobody forces you to offer free trial. But if you do, you need to accept the fact that there are people who are going to use your product for free to the maximum available capacity. In the old days, it wasn't much of a problem: you basically gave away pieces of software that stopped working after a certain period usually with limited functionality. There were many variants of this model: demo, trial, shareware. These free users didn't incur any direct costs for you (often someone else would do that for you, like computer magazines). Now, with SaaS, you need to provide computing resources for them - but this is your marketing cost. This is the problem of the model, not the customers. If you tell them they can use it for free for 2 weeks, they have the full right to use it and stop, period. They are not duchey unless they abuse the system by doing something clearly wrong, e.g. exploiting a bug in your software.
- rapind 5y ago
  Support costs need to be factored in too. Free customers can often have an enormous customer support cost. They'll send emails to sales@company.com if they can't find a support email with questions along the lines of "How do I do x..." (which might be completely covered by the documentation they didn't read), or "I have a suggestion...". You have to weigh the pros and cons. In some cases the cons might outweigh the pros and so you further qualify your free users, for example by requiring a Credit Card. This can be a big problem in freemium (and open source) type products.

CPLX 5y ago

This one doesn't bother me. In this scenario they're providing a real actual product that presumably they've worked hard on and has value. The free trial is their way of demonstrating that they have faith it's a good product and I'll want it. My credit card is a way of demonstrating that I'm a real customer that will pay if I do turn out to value it. That seems like a reasonably balanced transaction on both sides, not sure it fits into this framework. There are so many far far worse practices out there.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> My credit card is a way of demonstrating that I'm a real customer that will pay if I do turn out to value it. I see your point but there are many problems with this approach. 1. First, I'm not sure if I'll actually pay. It will happen only if your product manages to convince me it is what I need, that there are no bugs, that the support quality is good enough etc. 2. For core functions related to my business, if available, I'll always choose non-SaaS solution over SaaS-based to avoid vendor lock-in and unnecessary dependence. So, the conclusion of (1) and (2) is that you need to convince me to try it and stay. You will increase your chances by making the CC data part skippable. 3. I burned a few times in the past (with shady cancellation polices). Even if you are a honest business, I have no idea what expect. Why don't you let us get into a closer relationship instead of putting your hand in my pocket before we even got properly introduced? 4. Very often I just need to understand what the project is about. Sorry, most marketing descriptions are utter garbage and the exceptions are quite rare. So I really need to try to even consider the purchase. And I do pay - I pay with my time and attention that I give to your project. If you block this possibility, you lose, not me.

dqv 5y ago

It’s about what pisses off fewer customers. If I was stubborn and believed everything I read on HN about customers, I would continue to piss off a lot of people by designing under the assumption that I should only get CC details at the end of the trial. For certain types of customers, it is surprising and annoying to have to fill out CC info at the end of a trial. The customer gets the notice the trial is ending soon, but ignores the part about adding CC info to keep using after the trial. Then the day comes, we get them on the phone to ask if they will stay with us, they say yes but the person who has control of the CC is gone for the day. You’re not really going to turn it off are you? Sorry, but we have to. So the easy solution is to make the credit card form recommended but skippable. Skippers just need to know that the trial won’t be extended if they can’t pay. In either case, they still need to give the OK to charge at the end of the trial.