6 ms·

The 30 day free trial is mostly broken

44 points by cmadan 13y ago

camus 13y ago
> However, more SaaS applications should also consider a usage limited trial. it depends on the product , but for Saas that makes more sense. Even if the offer is really limited. However , what i dont like is services that has a free limited offer , but the first paid offer is just too expensive for those who want an entry level but paid service.
programminggeek 13y ago
It sounds like the author is complaining that some products aren't priced right for people who aren't willing to pay for them. If you don't have much money, you can't afford nice things. The 30 day free trial isn't broken just because you can't afford the end product. That's like saying a free test drive on a Ferrari is broken because you can't afford it. You knew you couldn't afford it when you took the test drive. Would it be better if they never let you have the test drive simply because you couldn't afford it?
- hobs 13y ago
  I don't think he is complaining as much as saying you can get a greater conversion rate if you give the person more time, but limit based on usage when it is used effectively as a non-trial. A ferrari is too extreme of an example, because they are trying out a few services, potentially developing some business with that service. A better car analogy would be to let you drive around any cab of a truck to get the look and feel and how everything works at your own pace, and then when you want to hook up the trailer they start charging.
  - FollowSteph3 13y ago
    But he's still asking to get something more than he can afford for free until he can afford it. As an analogy you don't get to have a free Ice cream truck for a few months until you can get your ice cream business going and are dependent on it. You have to pay for it or get something cheaper you can afford such as a push bike ice cream cart. The ice cream truck company is not in the business of funding new ice cream companies hoping one day you'll be able to make it
kaliblack 13y ago
This is a good reminder to think creatively about trials. Would be great to know what testing was done to show the 100 leads trial was the best.
ysapir 13y ago
A usage-based trial is really just the same thing as a time-based trial. There is a certain pace at which users are going to use up their usage quota, and that translates to a time period. Generally, though, you want the time period to end after the user has seen the benefits and before they have exhausted their initial enthusiasm or encountered any bugs. Giving a user four months to make their choice probably puts you on the wrong end of all those considerations. After the time-based trial, there are going to be different packages based on different usage quotas anyway. KISSmetrics is probably catering to very different and more established customers than the author, and their pricing model is structured accordingly.
- cooperadymas 13y ago
  Slightly tangential, but the KissMetrics 14 day trial makes little sense to me regardless of their target customer base. With an Analytics package you need time to set it up, then time to gather data, then time to analyze it to see how beneficial it is. 14 days just isn't enough to do anything of the sort. That said, I am a satisfied user of KissMetrics. Both their sales and their support team are incredibly helpful and responsive. The author compared KissMetrics to MixPanel, two services that offer relatively the same thing. MixPanel gives a free account up to 25000 events instead of a 14 day trial. This is a much, much more useful way of introducing the product to a new user.
- toumhi 13y ago
  > Generally, though, you want the time period to end after the user has seen the benefits and before they have exhausted their initial enthusiasm or encountered any bugs. Corollary: do not end the trial, whether it is time-limited or usage-limited, if the user couldn't verify the expected benefits before it's over. For example, at my company, we help vacation rental owners to publish their property on multiple websites. We've learnt that 1 month was, in fact, too short a trial for people to fully appreciate our service (for reasons that would take a long time to explain here). YMMV.
chaz 13y ago
Another thing I don't like about 30 day free trials is that they usually start right away. Before I know it, I'm getting an email saying that the trial is almost over, and I've barely used it. It takes time to develop a new habit and explore a product or service. This is worse if it requires some integration, setup, training, or data import. I wouldn't say the 30d free trial is broken, or even mostly broken, but it's not always the right solution.
- cooperadymas 13y ago
  I've seen this in a training subscription product I have worked with. Customers sign up because it's a free trial, then don't come back until they're warned it's almost over. The customers that don't use it in the first 30 days aren't likely to use it in the next 30 anyway. The solution for the provider is to better engage the users during the 30 day trial. If the only email they get during that trial is the warning that it's almost over then you're probably doing it wrong.
  - kintamanimatt 13y ago
    The more email I get from a service during a trial period the more pissed off I get; it feels as bad as someone nagging at me. I hate receiving email and trying to "engage me" by email is about as bad as a sales person calling me every few days to "see if I need some help" or to "offer a few helpful tips" etc.
    - cooperadymas 13y ago
      All a matter of taste, I guess. We've seen good results with it, as have plenty of other people. It's easy to overdo it, but 4-5 helpful emails spread out over 30 days isn't too much I think. This is assuming the emails actually are helpful and not just an annoyance. A lot of recent tools like Intercom and GetVero and Customer.io can help make this even smarter by emailing about specific abandoned tasks, different emails to those who aren't engaged at all, or not emailing someone who is fully engaged.
      - 13y ago
antidaily 13y ago
I couldn't disagree more. I've done 30 day trials and unlimited Free plans. Free plans convert much less often and require much more user support time. Now, do I think a bootstrapped startup should seek out free plans and betas? Of course. Just dont do that with your app.
rhapsodyv 13y ago
I think the very big problem with trials is that the majority is not by day of usage, but days in a row. So, when I really need to use, the trial has expired.
PaulHoule 13y ago
I find myself in two conditions. One is that I really need the product RIGHT NOW in which case I am going to pull out the credit card. The other is that it's one of the many things I'd like to evaluate someday and sure let's start that 30 day trial but there are so many other things I need to do RIGHT NOW that I never get around to finishing it.
anthonyarroyo 13y ago
The ____ is broken headline is broken.
patio11 13y ago
Test against your own audience, but I would bet heavily against the conclusion "Usage limited trials outperform free trials" for the majority of SaaS apps. Dropbox's case is different with a capital D because the trial/invite mechanic is code to their viral adoption. One powerful reason why you generally want to avoid having a meter running is you are really making two related but distinct sales: you are trying to convince them to pay, yes, but you are also trying to convince them to use your thing versus their existing way of doing business. That is often the harder sale. Putting a marginal cost, even in free quota, for using your thing puts friction in the adoption process, which you KEENLY do not want. While it may be the case as a bootstrapped entrepreneur that your business has not yet spent the sum of $600 on everything put together, the overwhelming majority of businesses are not like you. Many businesses will spend $600 today on one line item, for instance virtually any company which employs 3 or more college graduates. Many of these businesses also have habits with regards to buying software which are more beneficial to SaaS companies than your habits are, for example a) having predictable positive ROI on integration costs and b) never attempting to optimize for $150 expenses by switching providers on a whim.
- tgrass 13y ago
  For more on patio11's thoughts on pricing and conversions, please listen to his MicroConf lecture: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/04/24/marketing-for-people-who-would-rather-be-building-stuff/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/04/24/marketing-for-people-who...
- andrewflnr 13y ago
  How much better is a free trial for making that harder sale? If I know that any work I put into switching to your thing might get destroyed after thirty days, I'm less likely to bother at all. Whereas if it's a partially-free-forever thing like Dropbox, I don't have to commit as much to either the new way or old way. If I hate it, I don't have to rush to get out before the trial ends, I can just wait until I can't take it anymore. Partly it depends whether I actually need the "full version" just to evaluate, or if I can get by on the free version, for now at least. Didn't you have a similar issue with BCC, where people would get all they needed from the free trial? I don't remember how you resolved that.
FollowSteph3 13y ago
I look as the difference in your example that one suction cost $600 at the initial stages. Which to me indicates that you're very price sensitive. Maybe this is how the other company weeds out people who want to pay as little as possible. They basically don't want to fund startups. It's just a different business model. Too many times I hear here people saying startups should charge more, get paid for your efforts. But then if you do you're critized for being too expensive for startups. So what's the option then?
olegp 13y ago
A survey we ran at https://starthq.com https://starthq.com confirms the points the post brings up. We are looking to add pricing and trial duration info to our SaaS directory, but I was wondering: what does everyone think would be the best way to display this information & how should we go about collecting this data? When it comes to displaying the info, I was thinking of using two sets of tags, one for the pricing model, i.e. "Free", "Freemium" or "Trial" and the other for the starting price per month once you do start paying: "<$5", "<$10", "<$20" etc. perhaps with an option to say that you pay per use such as when sending transaction emails or infrastructure. As for collecting the data: the only thing I can think of is that we either do it ourselves, which would be time consuming for the 700+ apps we've got in the directory, or get the SaaS providers to register and do it themselves. Perhaps there's some way to automate this or crowd source it, but I can't seem to think of anything sensible.
jimmaswell 13y ago
I was expecting this to refer to how easily most software trials are bypassed. Some simply by changing your clock, others require uninstallation and reinstallation or change registry settings (I have yet to come across trial software on linux), and some even go so far as to have rootkit behavior, modifying your boot sector. For website services like this, it's trivial to just use multiple accounts. Not that I'd want to do this, I just think it's an interesting subject.
- chc 13y ago
  If $20 is worth more to you than the hassle of creating a new account and having to re-enter all your data every single month till the end of time, you are probably not somebody the provider should be optimizing their sales process for.
cyberpanther 13y ago
I definitely agree that you should have some kind of usage limitation so that if the person doesn't decide in 30 days they can come back and try the product still. However, what I've done for my product is given away the full product for 3 weeks and then limit usage after that. What I've seen, is more people buy my pro version instead of just the basic because they can test out all the features. They can also still come back and test the product and aren't shut out if they miss the time trial window.
pbreit 13y ago
30 day trials are prospect-hostile because they force customers onto the service provider's timeline, not the prospects. That said, I'm sure time-limited trials do force the decisioning process in a way freemium does not. My opinion on SaaS plans is that the no/low-cost plan should be more or less fully functioning, without even some sort of limit such as number of leads (ex: Yammer, Zendesk, Eventbrite). When companies really start using your product, the features that make up a paid tier will become obvious and said companies will be more than willing to pay up.
losethos 13y ago
God says... 30:14 And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set fire in Zoan, and will execute judgments in No. 30:15 And I will pour my fury upon Sin, the strength of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No. 30:16 And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be rent asunder, and Noph shall have distresses daily. 30:17 The young men of Aven and of Pibeseth shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity. 30:18 At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity. 30:19 Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the LORD.

44 points by cmadan 13y ago

camus 13y ago

> However, more SaaS applications should also consider a usage limited trial. it depends on the product , but for Saas that makes more sense. Even if the offer is really limited. However , what i dont like is services that has a free limited offer , but the first paid offer is just too expensive for those who want an entry level but paid service.

programminggeek 13y ago

It sounds like the author is complaining that some products aren't priced right for people who aren't willing to pay for them. If you don't have much money, you can't afford nice things. The 30 day free trial isn't broken just because you can't afford the end product. That's like saying a free test drive on a Ferrari is broken because you can't afford it. You knew you couldn't afford it when you took the test drive. Would it be better if they never let you have the test drive simply because you couldn't afford it?

hobs 13y ago
I don't think he is complaining as much as saying you can get a greater conversion rate if you give the person more time, but limit based on usage when it is used effectively as a non-trial. A ferrari is too extreme of an example, because they are trying out a few services, potentially developing some business with that service. A better car analogy would be to let you drive around any cab of a truck to get the look and feel and how everything works at your own pace, and then when you want to hook up the trailer they start charging.
- FollowSteph3 13y ago
  But he's still asking to get something more than he can afford for free until he can afford it. As an analogy you don't get to have a free Ice cream truck for a few months until you can get your ice cream business going and are dependent on it. You have to pay for it or get something cheaper you can afford such as a push bike ice cream cart. The ice cream truck company is not in the business of funding new ice cream companies hoping one day you'll be able to make it

kaliblack 13y ago

This is a good reminder to think creatively about trials. Would be great to know what testing was done to show the 100 leads trial was the best.

ysapir 13y ago

A usage-based trial is really just the same thing as a time-based trial. There is a certain pace at which users are going to use up their usage quota, and that translates to a time period. Generally, though, you want the time period to end after the user has seen the benefits and before they have exhausted their initial enthusiasm or encountered any bugs. Giving a user four months to make their choice probably puts you on the wrong end of all those considerations. After the time-based trial, there are going to be different packages based on different usage quotas anyway. KISSmetrics is probably catering to very different and more established customers than the author, and their pricing model is structured accordingly.

cooperadymas 13y ago
Slightly tangential, but the KissMetrics 14 day trial makes little sense to me regardless of their target customer base. With an Analytics package you need time to set it up, then time to gather data, then time to analyze it to see how beneficial it is. 14 days just isn't enough to do anything of the sort. That said, I am a satisfied user of KissMetrics. Both their sales and their support team are incredibly helpful and responsive. The author compared KissMetrics to MixPanel, two services that offer relatively the same thing. MixPanel gives a free account up to 25000 events instead of a 14 day trial. This is a much, much more useful way of introducing the product to a new user.
toumhi 13y ago
> Generally, though, you want the time period to end after the user has seen the benefits and before they have exhausted their initial enthusiasm or encountered any bugs. Corollary: do not end the trial, whether it is time-limited or usage-limited, if the user couldn't verify the expected benefits before it's over. For example, at my company, we help vacation rental owners to publish their property on multiple websites. We've learnt that 1 month was, in fact, too short a trial for people to fully appreciate our service (for reasons that would take a long time to explain here). YMMV.

chaz 13y ago

Another thing I don't like about 30 day free trials is that they usually start right away. Before I know it, I'm getting an email saying that the trial is almost over, and I've barely used it. It takes time to develop a new habit and explore a product or service. This is worse if it requires some integration, setup, training, or data import. I wouldn't say the 30d free trial is broken, or even mostly broken, but it's not always the right solution.

cooperadymas 13y ago
I've seen this in a training subscription product I have worked with. Customers sign up because it's a free trial, then don't come back until they're warned it's almost over. The customers that don't use it in the first 30 days aren't likely to use it in the next 30 anyway. The solution for the provider is to better engage the users during the 30 day trial. If the only email they get during that trial is the warning that it's almost over then you're probably doing it wrong.
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  The more email I get from a service during a trial period the more pissed off I get; it feels as bad as someone nagging at me. I hate receiving email and trying to "engage me" by email is about as bad as a sales person calling me every few days to "see if I need some help" or to "offer a few helpful tips" etc.
  - cooperadymas 13y ago
    All a matter of taste, I guess. We've seen good results with it, as have plenty of other people. It's easy to overdo it, but 4-5 helpful emails spread out over 30 days isn't too much I think. This is assuming the emails actually are helpful and not just an annoyance. A lot of recent tools like Intercom and GetVero and Customer.io can help make this even smarter by emailing about specific abandoned tasks, different emails to those who aren't engaged at all, or not emailing someone who is fully engaged.
    - 13y ago

antidaily 13y ago

I couldn't disagree more. I've done 30 day trials and unlimited Free plans. Free plans convert much less often and require much more user support time. Now, do I think a bootstrapped startup should seek out free plans and betas? Of course. Just dont do that with your app.

rhapsodyv 13y ago

I think the very big problem with trials is that the majority is not by day of usage, but days in a row. So, when I really need to use, the trial has expired.

PaulHoule 13y ago

I find myself in two conditions. One is that I really need the product RIGHT NOW in which case I am going to pull out the credit card. The other is that it's one of the many things I'd like to evaluate someday and sure let's start that 30 day trial but there are so many other things I need to do RIGHT NOW that I never get around to finishing it.

anthonyarroyo 13y ago

The ____ is broken headline is broken.

patio11 13y ago

Test against your own audience, but I would bet heavily against the conclusion "Usage limited trials outperform free trials" for the majority of SaaS apps. Dropbox's case is different with a capital D because the trial/invite mechanic is code to their viral adoption. One powerful reason why you generally want to avoid having a meter running is you are really making two related but distinct sales: you are trying to convince them to pay, yes, but you are also trying to convince them to use your thing versus their existing way of doing business. That is often the harder sale. Putting a marginal cost, even in free quota, for using your thing puts friction in the adoption process, which you KEENLY do not want. While it may be the case as a bootstrapped entrepreneur that your business has not yet spent the sum of $600 on everything put together, the overwhelming majority of businesses are not like you. Many businesses will spend $600 today on one line item, for instance virtually any company which employs 3 or more college graduates. Many of these businesses also have habits with regards to buying software which are more beneficial to SaaS companies than your habits are, for example a) having predictable positive ROI on integration costs and b) never attempting to optimize for $150 expenses by switching providers on a whim.

tgrass 13y ago
For more on patio11's thoughts on pricing and conversions, please listen to his MicroConf lecture: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/04/24/marketing-for-people-who-would-rather-be-building-stuff/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/04/24/marketing-for-people-who...
andrewflnr 13y ago
How much better is a free trial for making that harder sale? If I know that any work I put into switching to your thing might get destroyed after thirty days, I'm less likely to bother at all. Whereas if it's a partially-free-forever thing like Dropbox, I don't have to commit as much to either the new way or old way. If I hate it, I don't have to rush to get out before the trial ends, I can just wait until I can't take it anymore. Partly it depends whether I actually need the "full version" just to evaluate, or if I can get by on the free version, for now at least. Didn't you have a similar issue with BCC, where people would get all they needed from the free trial? I don't remember how you resolved that.

FollowSteph3 13y ago

I look as the difference in your example that one suction cost $600 at the initial stages. Which to me indicates that you're very price sensitive. Maybe this is how the other company weeds out people who want to pay as little as possible. They basically don't want to fund startups. It's just a different business model. Too many times I hear here people saying startups should charge more, get paid for your efforts. But then if you do you're critized for being too expensive for startups. So what's the option then?

olegp 13y ago

A survey we ran at https://starthq.com https://starthq.com confirms the points the post brings up. We are looking to add pricing and trial duration info to our SaaS directory, but I was wondering: what does everyone think would be the best way to display this information & how should we go about collecting this data? When it comes to displaying the info, I was thinking of using two sets of tags, one for the pricing model, i.e. "Free", "Freemium" or "Trial" and the other for the starting price per month once you do start paying: "<$5", "<$10", "<$20" etc. perhaps with an option to say that you pay per use such as when sending transaction emails or infrastructure. As for collecting the data: the only thing I can think of is that we either do it ourselves, which would be time consuming for the 700+ apps we've got in the directory, or get the SaaS providers to register and do it themselves. Perhaps there's some way to automate this or crowd source it, but I can't seem to think of anything sensible.

jimmaswell 13y ago

I was expecting this to refer to how easily most software trials are bypassed. Some simply by changing your clock, others require uninstallation and reinstallation or change registry settings (I have yet to come across trial software on linux), and some even go so far as to have rootkit behavior, modifying your boot sector. For website services like this, it's trivial to just use multiple accounts. Not that I'd want to do this, I just think it's an interesting subject.

chc 13y ago
If $20 is worth more to you than the hassle of creating a new account and having to re-enter all your data every single month till the end of time, you are probably not somebody the provider should be optimizing their sales process for.

cyberpanther 13y ago

I definitely agree that you should have some kind of usage limitation so that if the person doesn't decide in 30 days they can come back and try the product still. However, what I've done for my product is given away the full product for 3 weeks and then limit usage after that. What I've seen, is more people buy my pro version instead of just the basic because they can test out all the features. They can also still come back and test the product and aren't shut out if they miss the time trial window.

pbreit 13y ago

30 day trials are prospect-hostile because they force customers onto the service provider's timeline, not the prospects. That said, I'm sure time-limited trials do force the decisioning process in a way freemium does not. My opinion on SaaS plans is that the no/low-cost plan should be more or less fully functioning, without even some sort of limit such as number of leads (ex: Yammer, Zendesk, Eventbrite). When companies really start using your product, the features that make up a paid tier will become obvious and said companies will be more than willing to pay up.

losethos 13y ago

God says... 30:14 And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set fire in Zoan, and will execute judgments in No. 30:15 And I will pour my fury upon Sin, the strength of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No. 30:16 And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be rent asunder, and Noph shall have distresses daily. 30:17 The young men of Aven and of Pibeseth shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity. 30:18 At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity. 30:19 Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the LORD.