Advice for going from free to paid with an existing user base?
Smithy (https://smithy.app) is going paid very soon and there will not be a free tier available. Based on the usage that we've been tracking so far, the value that Smithy provides to a team is clear.
We have an existing user base: over 100 teams have now added Smithy, both large and small.
If you have experience with going from a free to a paid app with an existing user base, what's your advice?
In particular:
- Did you offer discounts to existing customers?
- If yes, lock-in discounted pricing for life or a period of time?
- How did you communicate (what sort of wording did you use) to explain the switch?
- Did you have calls with them before?
- How far in advance did you notify them?
- From those that pushed back, how did you convince them?
Thanks in advance!
Just saw the message in slack.
And the result is it got uninstalled.
Because the managment above does not care about these "convenience" tools and refuse to pay . "Slack has threads already use those".
Hi Nikita,
I recommend that you keep in mind 2 principles:
The first is to identify the most active users right now, and figure out what feature they are using the most. Then start charging for that feature. You should expect that not everybody will convert to paid. Your best chance of converting "some" people is to identify what they rely on the most and charge for that.
Second, in order to avoid angering your users by charging for something that previously was free, consider offering some additional value / premium features as part of the paid plan. For example, in the case of Smithy, this might be:
Good luck!
Also, Nikita, out of curiosity, how did you acquire your free users?