Is It Worth Using a Freemium Model as a Marketing Strategy, Hear What the Community Has to Say About It?

The marketing landscape has evolved, and brands today are coming up with different strategies and tactics to acquire new customers. One such strategy is to use a freemium plan for your SaaS product. A freemium plan allows users to sign-up with a free account and try out all the features on a tool. This can play a major part in your customer acquisition journey and let users have a taste of your product before they make a decision.

Although this model is often avoided by businesses to keep their product base exclusive. What I believe is everything comes with its Pros and Cons. Recently Social Champ introduced its own freemium model so that everyone can try it out and help us improve our product with their feedback. For this, we reached out to our community about what they think about using a freemium model as a marketing strategy? and what are their thoughts about Social Champ’s freemium plan?

Let’s hear what they had to say?

Stephanie Bernardo

Senior Online PR Specialist at Spiralytics

💭 Thoughts on SaaS Freemium Plans: Having a freemium plan for your SaaS product is an excellent way for people to try it. If your product solves their problem, you’re more likely to build a good reputation and get paying customers.

That’s how I first learned about some of the tools I now have a premium plan for! Social Champ starting a free plan is a great move in the right direction.

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Cindy Corpis

CEO at Search People Free

Freemium is a leading strategy used in customer acquisition. Businesses offer a free version of their service or product to motivate those customers to upgrade their services further.

The freemium plans around SaaS products have broadly replaced the free trial or demo model, mainly in product-led businesses. Moreover, the freemium tier offers users quick access to a feature or a limited production version indefinitely. Customers need to upgrade their services and pay to go beyond such restrictions.

One of the biggest examples is Social Champ, whose freemium product possesses many features that users soon hit the limits for, motivating them to upgrade to a paid-for version. This will significantly increase their checkout conversion rate.

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CJ Xia

VP of Marketing & Sales at Boster Biological Technology

It’s fair to say the freemium model has taken the SaaS industry by storm, and there are several reasons for this. Freemium has many benefits like effective customer acquisition, Aiding product-led business growth, higher retention rate, more cost-effectiveness etc.

It is a good initiative by Social Champ to launch a free plan for its audience; it will be helpful for the students, freelancers and small business owners to learn more about its features. Social Champ can also promote their paid software by freeware. For example, if the free users like your software, they give reviews and encourage others to purchase the paid version of the software.

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Kathleen Ahmmed

Co-founder at US Car Junker

Everyone loves a good discount, but when customers are gifted a free opportunity to use a service for an unlimited amount of time, then that is an almost irresistible offer, and if your competitors aren’t offering the same sort of plan, then it can often help a SaaS business to attract a larger user base to eventually nurture into paying customers.

Plus, the freemium model is often the best way to show first-hand the value of your offering, as it lets potential customers experience it on their own terms. And since it also gives you access to a continuous flow of user data and feedback, it can often be a great way to understand what is and isn’t working, so that you can better improve the product, your positioning, or even pricing strategy, in order to keep and convert users.

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Steven Walker

CEO at Spylix

Freemium plans are great, especially for the Saas products. There are several reasons behind the freemium products and why they are useful. These products are always helpful for both the users and the Saas company.

When users get the scope to use a freemium product, they may be interested in using the paid products. Or he will tell others about this product. So there will be more generated leads and chances of using the paid products. Also, a user becomes interested in using the paid products when it becomes a habit to use that product.

Then he steps ahead to use the paid products, which is the theory of freemium Saas products. This is needed for advertising new Saas products and attracting more users. Social Champ has also planned the same plan for attracting new users. Also, they will use the demographics of using their free plan product while developing new products. They will better understand what users like more.

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Rahul Kumar

CEO at Rank Soldier

Freemium is a great business model but you will only be able to convert free users if you have a great product/service for the premium part. With a quality premium service, a freemium product/service can go a long way since it actually helps the consumer first.

The customer is able to extract value and experience the product before paying for it. Also, it’s important to decide which features are going to be free. The best solution is to have beta users and let them experiment and then analyze the results.

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Vishal Srivastava

VP of Marketing at Hive Desk

Freemium plans can be very powerful in building awareness and driving paid sign ups.

If you check popular review sites like G2 and Capterra, you will see a large proportion of reviews by freemium users. The free users could be freelancers or small businesses. For example, Trello has 20K+ reviews on Capterra. The majority of these are from free users.

They also positively talk about the product on their site and in other places. These reviews build awareness and buy mindshare.

But freemium can be a problem if the cost of serving the customers is high. Or if the usage is periodic.

Take the example of Ahrefs. It costs them a lot of money to index the data. Most small businesses or freelancers would sign up for a free account to run monthly reports. So they charge $1 for their 7-day trial to discourage free riders.

Social Champ’s freemium plan seems like a good option for freelancers and individuals to manage their social media profiles. It may get you a lot of positive word-of-mouth.

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Gael Breton

Co-Founder at Authority Hacker

With over 15 years of experience in the digital marketing world, I can provide some feedback on this. We experimented a lot with free vs. paid plans on our products, and here is what we learned in the past few years:

Rather than taking away features from the free plan, add new features to the paid plan

Free plans are great – they generate buzz and let your audience get familiar with the product. But they come with some severe caveats if not appropriately planned. You need to ask yourself – is this product financially sustainable in the long run? Can you keep it free and still make it profitable?

A bait and switch model has become a common occurrence nowadays. After the initial launch, features slowly get stripped away from the free version to push customers to upgrade. This tactic has been used too many times already, and frankly – it’s a bit shady. It can produce adverse long-term effects and make you look dishonest in the eyes of your audience.

There is a better way to make free plans profitable – rather than taking away features from the free plan, add new, more advanced features in the paid plan. People will be encouraged to upgrade, and you won’t lose the goodwill of your users.

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Marc Bromhall

CMO at Storage Buddy

I think freemium is definitely the entry tier you’ll want to offer to prospective customers. However, having spoken to hundreds of SaaS entrepreneurs over the last 2 years, it’s become apparent that a freemium offer without asking for credit card details is far less effective.

Yes, one of my team members mentioned that Social Champ had launched a freemium plan. It’s on my list to discuss in next week’s meeting, with the aim of giving it a try.

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Dave Cimon

CEO at Costumes Heaven

The Freemium model is one such business strategy that is unpredictable – it can either break or make your business. It involves taking calculated and strategic risks. If you are thinking about replicating the freemium model to your SaaS products, ask some questions yourself about – core components that push users for upgradation, possible ROI, potential market and demand among target customers.

If you can tick all these boxes with positive answers then you can succeed by providing freemium services. Or else, freemium is not a good move.

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Stephen Curry

CEO at Coco Sign

Freemium trial is very helpful in terms of marketing. The more people you have using your product, the more publicity you get. Freemium enables prospective customers to test before buying, which is easy to acquire as many customers as possible. Providing a freemium model also allows you to try your product and understand what features make your users upgrade to a paid plan.

Social Champ is a hidden treasure that not many are accustomed to. This powerful tool is used for scheduling and publishing to the proper channels at the right time, tracking the effectiveness of your posts in real-time, and onboarding your entire team to create beautiful and engaging posts for every social platform. With their recent enticing deal, they introduced a seven days free trial. This will have a great impact in terms of customer acquisition.

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Brent Hale

Chief Content Strategist at Tech Guided

As a content strategist, I consider that freemium plans for any SaaS product are helpful to captivate the attention of consumers to their product first. Therefore, freemium plans help the SaaS product companies to get into the limelight of customers’ preferences and choices.

The major objective of a freemium plan for SaaS product companies is to attract customers to use the company services for free for a particular period. After the completion of the freemium plan, customers can decide what they want to do, choose the product or not.

However, it is a common thing to consider that 1 out of 10 users choose to be part of the company as a regular customer and here the goal of the company’s freemium plans accomplishes.

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Meet Shah

Social Media Manager at Global Vincitore

A freemium marketing business model is one in which platforms provide both free and paid versions of their services. The free version usually includes restricted or stripped-down functionality, but enough to meet customers’ basic needs while encouraging them to upgrade to a paid version.

Some of the famous Freemium practitioners include Dropbox, Spotify, Evernote, Candy Crush Saga by King.com, etc.

They used the freemium method in the game to allow players to interact with the free product without having to pay anything. They would only be charged if they wished to unlock specific action items, without which it would be difficult to get through some of the more tough levels.

So the concept was that once they felt comfortable with your services or product they will be addicted to this.

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Daniel Chan

CTO at Marketplace Fairness

Freemium plans can be a great way to spread the word about your product. One of the main benefits of a freemium plan is that it can help to attract new users. If your product is good, people will be more likely to sign up for a free plan in order to try it out.

Additionally, a free plan can help to build word-of-mouth marketing, as users will be more likely to recommend your product to their friends and family if they have had a good experience with it. If your product is well executed and the free plan is attractive, then a freemium plan can be very helpful in spreading the word about your product.

We think Social Champ’s free plan is a great idea! Offering a free plan can help people to try out their product and see how it can benefit them. It also builds word-of-mouth marketing, since users can recommend Social Champ to their friends and family after experiencing it for themselves.

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Samuel Speller

Founder at Kenko Tea

Being the owner of a small business, I find myself having to complete a wide variety of tasks by myself. This includes digital marketing.

Given that I am not an expert in digital marketing, I rely heavily on using SaaS products to help me. Most SaaS products are quite expensive, especially the good ones. This is why I have relied heavily on freemium plans, as they allow me to try the product for free.

I think SaaS freemium products are incredibly useful, as they allow small business owners like me who generally have a smaller marketing budget to try out different SaaS services. It makes SaaS more accessible to a wider audience, which helps spread the word around.

I have tried my fair share of SaaS freemium products, but have yet to find one that is perfect for me and my business needs. I am very excited by the fact that Social Champ has recently launched a freemium model, and will definitely try it out!

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Jared Stern

Founder & CEO at Uplift Legal Funding

Freemium plans are definitely helpful in spreading the word around. It lets potential customers test out the various features and see if the SaaS product suits their requirements. It also positively impacts people’s minds as they have already received value at zero price. It builds trust and helps in increasing conversions.

Social Champ’s free plan is one of the best in the market out there. Social Champ has covered all ground in such detail and depth. It will be the best choice for those looking out for a social media management tool.

Social Champ connects with multiple social media platforms and offers publishing and scheduling options. The automation, content curation, and team management features are top-notch. The analytics and reporting help keep track of each post’s performance. All iOS Android apps can be integrated with Social Champ. The wide range of services offers a sneak peek of Social Champ’s features.

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Lynda Fairly

Co-founder at Numlooker

A freemium SaaS offering means free access to the product in a limited method. The most substantial SaaS products are Slack, Invision, HubSpot, Zapier, and many more. Therefore, it’s not full of astonishment that every SaaS leader has considered it for their product.

The free version often provides limited functionality and allows users to fulfill basic requirements while incentivizing them to upgrade to a paid version.

After using the freemium version for a stipulated time, the audience sometimes wants to upgrade to the paid version. This popular tactic will help Social Champ acquire a considerable audience base who have used their free services and now want to upgrade to the paid ones.

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Ruben Gamez

CEO and founder of SignWell

Offering a freemium plan is the best way to market a SaaS product. Every successful SaaS product in the market currently started out by giving out freemium plans. Freemium plans are a great way to target and attract potential customers. It helps them understand your products by experiencing them.

Social Champ’s free plan is a brilliant opportunity for people looking for a social media management tool. The freemium version offers a plethora of options like Email support, hashtag manager, real-time social inbox monitoring, insightful analytics.

Further, there are many integrations with popular apps like Canva and Dropbox. The wide range of services will help any user understand the effectiveness of Social Champ.

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Cameron Blake

Owner & Creative Director at Ashford Creative

Freemium models are perfect for companies to grow with you as they grow. As a consumer looking for quality SaaS products, it’s always hard to commit fully to a product at any price point until our team starts to understand how it works and eliminates bottlenecks. Sometimes 7-15-30 day trials aren’t enough to get a solid feel of the platform and how it can be fully integrated into the processes of a company.

In my experience, trial periods end up doing one of two things:

1) The person in charge gets excited about a tool and attempts to get the team on board, but it fizzles because their current process is what they know.

2) Everyone is on board with the product, but the team doesn’t have enough time to acclimate to the new tool or platform before the trial ends, so no decision is made.

For SaaS companies, it’s important to understand that the companies they’re targeting may be spread thin in certain areas and they’re just trying to hold it together, which makes it harder to switch the entire team or even just the social media department over.

Essentially, freemium models allow companies/consumers to dip their toe in the water on their time frame and if the timing is right, they’ll upgrade to the next level.

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Jacob Hicks

CEO and Founder at Magnyfi

A freemium plan gives an easy way to try a product. You can also think of it as a way to grow with the SaaS solution. You could have one client that fits the freemium mold, but once you grow, you have to subscribe. 

About Social Champ’s freemium plan, This is great and plays right into the reasoning we see as a value add. You can help the little businesses while they are growing. 

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Daniel Sarao

Owner at Macaw Digital Marketing

The freemium model. What is it good for? If done right it’s an effective CTA and method to convert prospects who are on the fence. The chance to try before you buy is obviously a good way for potential users (whether they are consumers or businesses) to take the plunge with no monetary commitment.

But here’s the thing about Freemium offerings. Ones that are watered down to the point of providing little value create a risk of turning exciting prospects into upset haters, never to return (or hard to recapture). Even though the free version is free your users still need to commit their time.

And you never want to waste their time. So your freemium product needs to show the clients enough value for them to stick around, while at the same time showing them how much better their lives could be with your amazing paid version.

Some freemium models that do it well: Hubspot CRM and RankMath are two off the top of my head.

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Olivia Tan

Co-founder at Coco Fax

Freemium is a great strategy, and it is popularly called a winning model for Saas businesses. Freemium plans, as said, are one of the great strategies because they fasten these features with them.

A great strategy to acquire new customers. As we think like a customer, the excitement we get when we have to use the phrase ‘Free’ is priceless. It acts as a great javelin to hit the targeted customers.

Secondly, it needs no additional explanations or any demo videos. This stands as a high opportunity to attract customers.

Thirdly, this has a positive influence on the churn rate. Benefiting both customer and revenue retention rates is another great feature here.

Social Champ had recently launched a free plan for its audience. Social Champ is a great option that all customers prefer. Once the free plans are launched, it is a great benefit to Social Champ. It helps both the customers and them.

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Matthew Post

Co-founder at WCAG Pros

Conversion has always been the biggest problem with freemium, but it’s also a big problem for SaaS products that don’t use this business model. Since
you’re going to meet problems with conversion one way or another, you might as well adopt the freemium model and reap the benefits associated with it. One of the biggest benefits of the freemium model is that it allows the SaaS product to accumulate a large number of free users that can then become its pool of potential premium users.

Having a large number of people interact with your product has the effect of increasing your brand awareness and social proof. It is also an opportunity to show potential customers your proof of concept and gradually build trust with them so they eventually purchase the premium features.

Lastly, having a lot of users on your platform allows you to study user behavior and preferences and use that information to make your product better and more attractive to potential customers.

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Matthew Paxton

Founder at Hypernia

The freemium business model is one in which you distribute your goods to people for free and supply them with the fundamental value of your product for an indefinite period of time while encouraging them to become paying customers in order to have access to more advanced features.

As the COVID-19 lockdowns spread around the world last spring, enterprises large and small saw demand suddenly come to a halt. Enterprises were hesitant to make large, long-term commitments when they had no idea what the future held. To increase demand, innovative SaaS companies swiftly responded by making their goods available for free or at a high discount.

The free products were intended squarely at end users, whether they were developers, individual marketers, sales representatives, or anyone else on the outskirts of an organization. These end customers were stranded at home throughout the epidemic, despite the fact that they critically needed software to support their working lives.

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Valentine Okoronkwo

Digital Marketing Manager at Passive Secrets

Benefits of freemium plans around SaaS products: All SaaS products have a learning curve or some sort of period where the customer learns how to use the software. Because of this, most SaaS products that do very well also have a freemium plan or free trial attached.

It encourages people to sign up to try the product out and also helps new users become familiar with using the software. Most SaaS business also uses their freemium plan to generate new leads, then they nurture the new leads and ascend to their paid plans or other services.

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We would like to thank all of our contributors for sharing their thoughts with us!