Hey HN!
A few months ago I launched a SaaS for Discord groups which has a newsletter as well. There is a basic plan and a paid plan for those who want to supercharge their discord community (think advanced access control, management, community perks, AI based help, etc.)
Since shipping, I see around 87% of customers (out of around 20,000+) are using the service for free and only about a small percentage ~12-13% are paying.
Is this normal when having a SaaS that there are a huge amount of free people? I'm glad free people see some value in my service, but the only worry for me is the server costs as this scales up.
What do you guys do in this situation for converting free customers into paying customers?
Thank you!
> Since shipping, I see around 87% of customers (out of around 20,000+) are using the service for free and only about a small percentage ~12-13% are paying.
Congratulations on shipping!
Are new people mostly "free people" or do you continue to have a good mix of over 10% paid users? Is your free tier too generous? Is it too difficult to pay? As a "free people", I would love it if you priced your free tier in a sustainable way.
Congrats on the launch! Still early in my process but I found this YC Startup School video useful relative to your question. [0]:https://youtu.be/oWZbWzAyHAE
[random advice from the internet]
My intuition is that trying to find new paying users will be a better use of your time than trying to convert free tier users to paid.
And it is probably better to extend an existing service in ways that allow paying customers to pay you more money and that attract new paying customers to the solution.
At best, a free tier provides an organic path from uncertainty about the service to deciding it is worth paying money for the service to solve whatever problem it solves.
In the average case, a lot of free tier use is driven by the psychology of it's-free, and people will quit before they convert even when it is a bit disadvantageous.
Good luck.