From Trial to Customer: Finding the Right Model

Struggling to convert leads into customers? A product-led growth (PLG) strategy, like offering a free trial, can help. It gives prospects a risk-free way to experience your product and see its value firsthand.

In fact, 77% of B2B companies offer free trials today, according to Swipe Files’ 2024 marketing report. But in a value-conscious market, just offering a trial isn’t enough. You need a strategy to convert trial users into paying customers.

How Free Trials Can Benefit Your Business

Traditional marketing is effective for promoting your business, but it’s hard to convert prospects when they haven’t seen your product’s true value. 

During the acquisition stage of your business, free trials can help you in two ways:

• Reduce your average CAC (customer acquisition cost). Since your product does all the talking, your business has to spend less money on other marketing channels such as paid advertising, sales enablement, or customer onboarding.
• Increase conversion rate. Prospects who have experienced your product firsthand, Product Qualified Leads (PQLs), convert at a higher rate than Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs).

Choosing the Right Free Trial Model

The idea is simple: give prospects access to your product with no upfront payment, turning them into paying customers once they see its value. Depending on your product type, there are different free trial models to choose from:

• Opt-in trials
• Opt-out trials
• Usage-based trials
• Freemium trials
• Reverse trials 

Each model has its strengths and trade-offs. Here’s a quick look at how they work.

Opt-In And Opt-Out Trials

Opt-in trials are the most common method businesses use to offer free trials. With an opt-in strategy, customers can simply sign up on your website and start using the product right away — no credit card required. It’s simple and frictionless, which enhances the onboarding experience.

Opt-out trials require potential customers to enter their payment information upfront for limited-time access. If they see value in your SaaS product, they will continue on a paid plan. Otherwise, they can cancel before being charged.

Opt-in trial-to-paid conversion rates typically sit around 18.2% for organic traffic and 17.4% for paid traffic, while opt-out trials convert much higher, at 48.8% to 51%. Because you’re adding more friction, fewer prospects sign up for a free trial with the opt-out model (2.4% organically vs. 8.5% with opt-in), but the ones who do are far more likely to convert.

Usage-Based Trials

Another way to offer a free trial is by putting a cap on the resources available. There’s no time limit with this method. Users can use your product for as long as they like, provided they haven’t exceeded a certain limit.

Once they’ve used up their assigned limit, they can either move forward with a paid plan or stop using your product.

Freemium Trials

It’s in the name. Freemium trials work by offering a basic free plan alongside a paid option. Your product’s free plan shouldn’t be so restrictive that users can’t find value in it, but also have certain features behind a paywall so prospects can later choose to upgrade if needed. 

Reverse Trials

The reverse trial strategy is similar to the freemium model, but with one key difference: how users initially experience your product. Here, users get full access to premium features from day one. Once the trial ends, they’re downgraded to the free plan.

With this approach, you let prospects explore everything your product has to offer without any strings attached. This makes it easier for them to see the value and decide if the upgrade is worth it.

How to Find the Right Trial Length for Your Product

The length of your trial can impact both signups and conversions. Too short, and users won’t get to the “aha” moment. Too long, and they might lose urgency or forget to engage. 

So, how long should your free trial be? Short answer: 30 days.

A study by Whop tested four trial durations — 3, 7, 14, and 30 days — to find out which one works best. Here's what they found

• 2% percent of customers signed up for a 3-day trial, and while it had a conversion rate of 35% it’s not as effective as the other models due to its low signup rate.
• 20% of the users signed up for a 7-day trial, with a conversion rate of 22%. 
• 14-day trial had a conversion rate of 15% with a 9% sign-up rate.
• 30-day trial proved to be the most effective in this study, with a conversion rate of 56% and the most signups at 32%.

Cameron Zoub, Whop’s co-founder, said: "As it becomes increasingly challenging to get heard as a product or service in a crowded online space, one of the most powerful methods we've identified is offering 30-day free trials. By providing potential customers with an extended period to explore and integrate a product, businesses and digital creators can significantly boost engagement and conversion rates. This approach allows users to fully understand the value a product brings to their lives.”

While Whop’s data is helpful, trial length also depends on your product’s complexity and time-to-value. Here’s what other marketing experts said when Encharge asked them about “perfect trial length.”

Aazar Shad of Userpilot emphasizes the importance of identifying your product’s “aha” and “activation” moments when deciding trial length. “Aha” is when users realize the potential of your product and how it can help solve their problem, and “activation” is when they experience that value firsthand. If your aha and activation moments are quick, consider a 7-day trial. If they take longer, a 14 to 30-day trial is a better solution.

“It depends on how fast the ‘aha and activation moments’ are. For instance, if a user gets the aha and value realization fast, then I wouldn’t wait for more than 7 days. To understand the value, you need to pass those custom events to see if the user was able to set up. With Userpilot, our Aha! is quick, and the activation moment is delayed because PMs need to wait for a sprint for the app to get installed and go live. Hence, we give 14 days and allow for a further extension.”

Corey Haines, Cofounder of Conversion Factory, believes a trial length should just be enough so prospects can experience the product and find value in it.

“The perfect trial length is just long enough for someone to have adequate time to get set up, experience the product, and record real usage. But still short enough that they feel pressure to use it while they have it and not put it off.”

Kalo Yankulov, Co-founder of Encharge, says that users “don’t care much about the trial length and will experience value and make a purchasing decision at their own pace.” In his experience, a 7 to 14-day trial is the sweet spot.

But there’s no free trial length that works for everyone. The key is understanding how and when your product delivers value and aligning your trial around that.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask how fast can they hit that “aha” moment? If they’ve not hit a key feature after a few days, follow up with targeted emails, guide them through key activation steps, and make onboarding as smooth as possible. Interactive demos, tooltips, and checklists help users get value fast and convert.