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Ask HN: Free Trial for 1 Day, 1 Week, 15 Days, 30 days or more?

3 points by Concours 15y ago

How do you choose the length of your product free Trial? Many webapps offers a 30 Days free trial, while some offer a 7/15 days Free trial, is there any "Right" lenght here? how do you do it?

brk 15y ago
It depends partly on what your app does. If it is a tool to add special effects to a photo, a 7 day trial might be plenty. If it is an app to measure SEO effect on we traffic, the user is going to need a longer sample time. I do not think there is a universal right answer. You want it to be long enough that the user gets a proper feel for the value of the product, and short enough that they are pushed to make a buying decision while it still feels new and exciting.
- samikc 15y ago
  Agreed what brk said. You should also consider the frequency of usage that your product needs. If your product has kind on once a day usage, you can provide a 7/15 days trial. But if the frequency is around once a week you need to provide a longer trial days. You can think of this equation (no claims of result- just what I have used): F = number of killer features in your app UC = usage count to get used to the feature freq = frequency of usage in some units Then your minimum trial period should be something like: Trial Period = F * UC * (1/freq) Hope that helps
helen842000 15y ago
At what point is the app most useful, i.e when does it become meaningful for the user? It doesn't HAVE to be in days does it? Look at Dropbox, their free tier lasts for however long it takes you to fill up 2.2Gb, 'cause once you get to that level a) you know it works well b) you're using it regularly so upgrading is barely an issue because you've already seen the worth. If it's a photo app you could say 50 images, they have a certain level of investment into the app so it becomes useful. If it's a game, when does it become addictive? level 3? 50,000 points? 40 in-game hours? I think users find 'use' in apps at different rates. By cutting them off after x days - you essentially lose them. Let them carry on under a certain threshold until it becomes meaningful to them, they'll upgrade to a paid plan. Let them mature to the point where they are most likely to upgrade.
- dholowiski 15y ago
  Agreed. The whole point of a 'free trial' is to give someone long enough using your product that they can't live without it and they have to pay you for more. It might take some people 2 hours to get to that point and it might take other people 6 months to get to that point. However, it also depends on if giving out the free trial costs you anything - you might not be able to afford to give your product away for 6 months (or longer). I personally think it's a good idea to design a free tier into any product, and design it very carefully so that it costs you as little as possible to give away.
dchuk 15y ago
My advice: your trial should be a minimalist version of your product with an unlimited duration. When a user signs up for the trial, add them to your mailing list. Then, when you add features 1 month, 3 months, 6 months from now, you can mail your users about them, and that user can log back into his trial account to try it out.

3 points by Concours 15y ago

How do you choose the length of your product free Trial? Many webapps offers a 30 Days free trial, while some offer a 7/15 days Free trial, is there any "Right" lenght here? how do you do it?

brk 15y ago

It depends partly on what your app does. If it is a tool to add special effects to a photo, a 7 day trial might be plenty. If it is an app to measure SEO effect on we traffic, the user is going to need a longer sample time. I do not think there is a universal right answer. You want it to be long enough that the user gets a proper feel for the value of the product, and short enough that they are pushed to make a buying decision while it still feels new and exciting.

samikc 15y ago
Agreed what brk said. You should also consider the frequency of usage that your product needs. If your product has kind on once a day usage, you can provide a 7/15 days trial. But if the frequency is around once a week you need to provide a longer trial days. You can think of this equation (no claims of result- just what I have used): F = number of killer features in your app UC = usage count to get used to the feature freq = frequency of usage in some units Then your minimum trial period should be something like: Trial Period = F * UC * (1/freq) Hope that helps

helen842000 15y ago

At what point is the app most useful, i.e when does it become meaningful for the user? It doesn't HAVE to be in days does it? Look at Dropbox, their free tier lasts for however long it takes you to fill up 2.2Gb, 'cause once you get to that level a) you know it works well b) you're using it regularly so upgrading is barely an issue because you've already seen the worth. If it's a photo app you could say 50 images, they have a certain level of investment into the app so it becomes useful. If it's a game, when does it become addictive? level 3? 50,000 points? 40 in-game hours? I think users find 'use' in apps at different rates. By cutting them off after x days - you essentially lose them. Let them carry on under a certain threshold until it becomes meaningful to them, they'll upgrade to a paid plan. Let them mature to the point where they are most likely to upgrade.

dholowiski 15y ago
Agreed. The whole point of a 'free trial' is to give someone long enough using your product that they can't live without it and they have to pay you for more. It might take some people 2 hours to get to that point and it might take other people 6 months to get to that point. However, it also depends on if giving out the free trial costs you anything - you might not be able to afford to give your product away for 6 months (or longer). I personally think it's a good idea to design a free tier into any product, and design it very carefully so that it costs you as little as possible to give away.

dchuk 15y ago

My advice: your trial should be a minimalist version of your product with an unlimited duration. When a user signs up for the trial, add them to your mailing list. Then, when you add features 1 month, 3 months, 6 months from now, you can mail your users about them, and that user can log back into his trial account to try it out.