optimal free trial length

[christmyonlyhope]

my startup has metered billing with a signup bonus of X free credits.
the free trail is the sooner that you use the X credits or Y days.
The X is low, just enough for them to get a feel if they like the product with a few use cases.

What should the Y be? I experimented with 14 days, but hotjar shows that some people shy away b/c they think I don't need it right now.

I could make this 30 days or even 60 days and not break a sweat.

This would allow for a huge auto-responder sequence giving value.

Is there anything wrong with giving super high Y days, when the limiting factor is really the X credits.

example free trial:
5 free music downloads for the next 30 days.

what would the optimal number be for the "30"?

would it be BAD to make this 60 days?

60 days will really prevent people from saying "i don't want to sign up today b/c i don't know when I am going to use it".

the beauty is that they will probably run out of credits first.

 

[radon]

@christmyonlyhope What if Y is infinity? If you're planning on them using the 5 tokens first anyway, Y seems to have no relevance. Then they have 5 instances to interact with your service for free, and they don't have to worry about them running out.

My thought is once they're in, they're in. It's what you get them to do after that which matters, not simply making them feel like they have to cash in arbitrarily on their remaining tokens.

 

[sketchybuffalo]

@radon Agree. You have more chances if they are still with you. On the other hand, sense of urgency works well as a tool to get sign ins. So, for example, if you had a discount rate that tailed off over the y period, you could rope in users who like the service but are merely dragging their feet. It all needs to be clear and simple though and also enough of an incentive.