A case for the infinite free trial

This post is about free trials for software, specifically web apps. You know, ‘try 14 days for free’.  I want to argue that we may want to rethink that model, and more specifically: we may want to rethink when to end the free trial.

I’d like to argue for a new approach for this: do not expire the free trial until you detect that the user has formed a clear idea of your app’s value.

I’m sure there are flaws in my reasoning I am not thinking about, and in any case I’ve never seen this approach, at least not taking it as far (i.e. automating it) as I will describe here. Flexibility in trials when appropriate is already done – and rightly so – by companies that like a personal, value-centered approach during sales, but my thought experiment is about doing it by default, automatically.

First of all, why do we offer free trials? Because it’s Sales 101: put time a time constraint (whether real or imagined) on the other party, and they will be more likely to make the decision to buy your product.

Not every decision is a buying decision

Actually it’s a bit more specific than that: time pressure puts pressure on a decision, and if the relevant decision to make at the time is a buying decision, that’s the one the pressure will help make.

However, not at every stage of the ‘customer journey‘ a pricing decision is the one on the person’s mind. Before that, at the very least, there are:

• The ‘what exactly is my need/problem’ decision.
• The ‘what direction shall I search in to solve it’ decision.
• The ‘does this specific solution hold a promise to fulfill lmy need’ decision.
• And only then there is, maybe, a ‘buying decision’ regarding your specific solution.

You want to make the customer at ease at their own time for as long as you want, but when he is ‘hot’, i.e. saw the value of your product, a time constraint is the extra nudge that can help them make the decision and close the deal.

In the store, you first ask the customer if you can help them and what they are looking for, and only after they expressed an interest for your product, you nudge them over the edge with a ‘benefits if you decide now’ constraint.

So, the free trial time constraint serves a well-defined purpose, but in nearly all of the current apps it’s just a bit too… Crude.

Note that this may apply more to some people than to others: people who are busy, and sign up to new things all the time. Where I work we are a big fan of using tools to make our lives as easy as possible, so just to give you an idea where I’m coming from:  very much fit that profile, and chances are so do you.

A fictional conversation with a customer

Pop quiz: try to spot where the following exchange turns from quite common into never-happened-between-sane-people territory:

• Sales rep: if you buy before the end of the month I’ll be able to give you a 20% discount!
• You: great, with that discount I’ll take it. Bit busy now though, so I can only do the purchase the 3rd next month.
• Sales rep: whoops, sorry sir, I said before the end of the month. Guess we lost you as a customer then. Say hi to our competitor wen you buy from them!

Yet this is exactly what we do when we send a ‘your trial is about to expire’ mail to somebody.

A concrete example: ToutApp

As a concrete example let’s look at ToutApp‘s ‘end of your free trial’ email, the one that triggered me into writing this post. Here it is:

Now, ToutApp is not just a great product (seriously, check it out if you are a disaster at managing your sales emails like me), but this mail is also flawlessly executed by the ‘rules of the game’ in my opinion, including a friendly invitation to reply to a real person with any more questions.

But given that I barely used their app at that point, and they could easily detect this in their systems, I think it’s not ideal that the obvious objective they push for in the mail is having me switch to a paying plan.

Something like this would have been even better:

See? Rather than hurrying me into a buying decision, it pushes me into the next natural step they want me in: discovering the value of their product. Who wants a customer that doesn’t even know what they are buying anyway? That’s easy money perhaps, but not exactly great for the sustainability of your company.

And yes, as long as their systems indicate I did not do a ‘value showing action’ (could be login, could be something more specific, like in their case creating an email template and sending it), I propose to keep extending my trial and sending me the above mail indefinitely, until I either go log in and go do the value-demonstrating actions, or indicate explicitly to stop bugging me.

Of course, as soon as your systems indicate the user had a chance to experience the value of your product, that’s when switch to the ‘your trial is over, give us your money to keep the goodness going’ approach and message.

Infinite trial !== freemium

As a final note: the scenario I argue may seem a lot like the ‘freemium’ method at first sight, but that’s not quite it:

• Freemium starts you off with a ‘limited’ version of your product, and then wants you to upgrade as soon as you want the more powerful ‘premium’ functionality.
• Free trial (including the infinitely extended version) shows the full-on ‘premium’ value right from the start, and wants you to upgrade.

Both approaches have their natural place depending on how exactly your product provides value, but that’s another story.

So, in conclusion, here’s what I argued as a thought experiment: don’t expire a free trial until you know it has served its purpose: showing the value of your app.

I wonder if any companies already do the ‘infinite free trial until value shown’ approach? Do you know any?

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