Here's my improved answer from previous - "Don't offer free plan" post.
I recently shut down my free plan and instead introduced Trial on paid plans for my SAAS [1]. Brought in a new entry-level plan that is significantly cheaper to make the transition easier.
As an indiehacker, the free plan allowed me to iron out bugs and improve the overall experience of the platform. But the amount of effort it took to maintain the free plan was enormous so, I shut it down. I informed users about the decision and, I am glad few converted to being paid customers.
The most difficult part was to convert free users into paid ones. I tried everything - Coupons, discounts, emailing customers, lowering the limits, limited offers etc. Nothing really worked.
I have a lot of free time now and I can focus on delivering value to my customers. The server load has also reduced due to the reduction of free requests and database writes/reads.
For a large SAAS company like Slack, Trello etc, it makes sense to have a free plan since you have a lot of resources at your disposal but, if you are a small team or worse alone, then hell no.
I recently shut down my free plan and instead introduced Trial on paid plans for my SAAS [1]. Brought in a new entry-level plan that is significantly cheaper to make the transition easier.
As an indiehacker, the free plan allowed me to iron out bugs and improve the overall experience of the platform. But the amount of effort it took to maintain the free plan was enormous so, I shut it down. I informed users about the decision and, I am glad few converted to being paid customers.
The most difficult part was to convert free users into paid ones. I tried everything - Coupons, discounts, emailing customers, lowering the limits, limited offers etc. Nothing really worked.
I have a lot of free time now and I can focus on delivering value to my customers. The server load has also reduced due to the reduction of free requests and database writes/reads.
For a large SAAS company like Slack, Trello etc, it makes sense to have a free plan since you have a lot of resources at your disposal but, if you are a small team or worse alone, then hell no.
[1] http://blanq.io/