Free to fee
17 May 2007
OnStartups discusses the challenges in offering a free service as an introduction to a paid product. A summary of the different problems to overcome:
Finding the right balance of features in the free version.
You still have hardware and infrastructure costs for a free product.
Tech support for free users.
The price increase from free to $$ is steep.
Without enough added value, paid users may revert back to the free product
There’s a valuable discussion forming in the comments, as well.