The chances of converting someone who is casually browsing are far lower. However we’ve seen that generally, lowering the barrier to entry doesn’t attract a more serious customer. In some cases these emails come from people who are legitimately searching for a proposal solution. So how does this benefit me, the customer?Īs I mentioned, we’ve had plenty of emails (even angry ones telling us in no uncertain terms how we should run our business) asking us to remove the need for a credit card.
When we pull out our wallets what we're really saying is “I want this” …not, “Let’s see how cool this is”. Nothing says I’m serious like putting money on the table. So why was "free to get in" a bad move for Nusii? Browsing by it's very nature is rarely accompanied by the intention to buy. Unfortunately owering the barrier to entry put us briefly on the “free to get in” radar. We’re always looking for the next greatest thing. The thing is, creative folks (especially designers, like myself) love to browse. This is not something a bootstrapped business can afford. Our conversion rate fell from 30% to a measly 3%. There was a direct correlation between the number of trash email addresses (and here I include Gmail) in our system and the amount of time we spent answering support requests. Support requests shot up, along with our frustration. However our conversion rate suffered to the point of being downright depressing. Of course we had expected the conversion rate to suffer, but we'd hoped that the sheer volume of trials would compensate. This one little experiment directly cost us a month's growth. We got excited, very excited! It didn't take long to see results. Overnight things blew up and suddenly we'd 5x’d the number of trials. After all, what’s was the worst that could happen? So what happened? Reduce the friction, get more trials and retire to the Bahamas. “Nathan, get rid of the credit card requirement. Eventually the topic of our signup process came up. We lose money on every refund, so false signups are not our goal… ever.īut it works for Freshbooks, Zoho and countless others!īack in the early days of Nusii I would sporadically chat with a successful SaaS owner. We offer a 30 day money-back guarantee.We email you twice before your trial ends to ensure you have plenty of time to cancel.Although we require a credit card, our 14 day trial is indeed free.If you take a look at our pricing page you'll notice a few things: We are very open about the whys and wherefores. It does however, haveĮverything to do with increasing the chances of converting a potential customer into an actual customer. The only problem with this is that it's complete crap!Īsking for a credit card during signup has nothing to do with ensuring a smooth crossover from trial to paying customer. “A credit card is required to ensure your service remains uninterrupted after your trial ends”. The few startups that do try to deal with the sticky issue of why a credit card is required to trial their service usually default to the following: Most startups don't publicly address this question, and prior to this post, neither had we.
So why the hell do we keep asking for one? Let’s start with what others tell you It's by far the biggest drop off point in our funnel. Over the last few years we've received a bunch of angry emails about why we ask for a credit card to trial Nusii.