⚡🔄 ‘Reverse trials’: a pricing model that everyone is adopting

Hey there,

Welcome back to another edition of Bootstrapped Growth. 👋

Today, we cover reverse trials. These give users full access upfront, with an eventual downgrade to a free plan if there is no conversion event.

Table of Contents

• 🚀 Strategy

• ⭐️ Extra Tips

• 🛠️ Resources

Thanks for reading. Let’s jump in!

🚀 2 Best Practice Reverse Trial Examples

1) Build product dependency first

Airtable (workflow platform) upgrades signups to their ‘Team’ plan for a fixed window. Airtable realized that most users require time to build workflows and invite teammates. Once the upgrade window ends, users have real data that colleagues rely on, creating a high switching cost.

Takeaway ➡️ Align the timing of your trial length to how long it takes users to build dependency. This creates emotional anchoring where users feel like anything less than the ‘best’ version of your product is a step down. Typically, 14-30 days allows habits form for more complex products.

2) Stop account abuse with automatic downgrades

Toggl (time tracking tool) offers 30 days of full premium access. This was to address the problem where businesses create multiple accounts with different email addresses to take advantage of their generous free plan. Users are then downgraded to the free plan after the trial window. Toggl discovered that users don't bother creating fake accounts because they're never completely locked out. This simple shift has seen Toggl's premium plan revenue double.

Takeaway ➡️ Reverse trials remove the incentive for free users to game the system and keeps users engaged long-term.

⭐️ 4 hot tips for introducing reverse trials

1. The value-gap between premium and free plans should be obvious. Highlight premium only features throughout the trial using gentle in-product nudges.

2. Communicate transparently. Users should know upfront when the trial ends, the subsequent ‘downgrade’ change including any loss of ‘premium’ features and no credit card lock-in. Soft friction (e.g. one click ‘extend trial’ or ‘book a demo’ buttons) can increase conversion in a non-pushy way.

3. Trigger upgrade nudges with contextual timing. Prompt users at suitable behavioural moments such as when usage thresholds are reached or premium-only features are required.

4. Keep the free plan useful but strategically incomplete. Free tiers should be valuable so that users stick around but have obvious ceilings (usage caps, premium feature limits). This motivates upgrading to premium plans.

🛠 Useful Resources

Try Cartesia.ai, a free AI voice agent maker that makes streaming text-to-speech sound very natural.

Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Peak streaming time continues after Black Friday on Roku, with the weekend after Thanksgiving and the weeks leading up to Christmas seeing record hours of viewing. Roku Ads Manager makes it simple to launch last-minute campaigns targeting viewers who are ready to shop during the holidays. Use first-party audience insights, segment by demographics, and advertise next to the premium ad-supported content your customers are streaming this holiday season.

Read the guide to get your CTV campaign live in time for the holiday rush.

Learn more.