Free Trial or Free Tier

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Here’s why you may want to offer a free trial/tier:

Because free trials and tiers are such low-pressure and low-commitment entry points for customers, they can be a great way to get leads in the funnel and get them using (and hopefully really enjoying) your product. Ideally, your product is both sticky and highly necessary, and once they use it a bit, they’ll be hooked. If one of those excited users happens to be working at a large enterprise company, chances are good that they mention your product to management, and you end up landing a big-ticket deal. Finally, because it’s a product-led growth tactic, it frees up your sales team to focus on those higher-ticket value opportunities while still converting some of those free-tier users.

Example: Descript, Figma, Slack, Zoom

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Here’s why you might not want to offer a free trial/tier…

We love free stuff, but it’s definitely not for every SaaS company. Free-tier users do sometimes convert to paying customers, but they can also cost the business, bombard your customer service team with requests, and distract from what your paying customers really need – without ever planning to convert. It’s always smart to focus on building products for your highest value customers rather than those who don’t pay at all.