Are free trial abuses impacting SaaS revenue?
Alexandre Schouwey
3 replies
While working on a SaaS product, we hit a snag with free trial abuses.
That challenge sparked my next project: https://www.fraudlock.io/
We’re on a mission to eliminate free trial abuses in SaaS platforms.
Based on extensive research, here are the three most common types of fraud that SaaS platforms face:
1) Free trial abuses (users creating multiple accounts to extend trial benefits without paying)
2) Refund fraud (customers falsely claiming refunds to exploit return policies)
3) Token cycling (where users repeatedly sign up to exploit test tokens).
Share the industry you're in and the types of fraud you're facing.
Replies
Ivan Spadacenta@ivan_spadacenta
Don't know if this is the best method yet, but for sure the problem exists.
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Hi Alexandre,
Free trials are a valid method for product validation in the SaaS industry. They allow users to experience the product, providing essential feedback and helping to determine market fit. Y Combinator supports this approach for early-stage feedback and user acquisition (Y Combinator) (Y Combinator).
Benefits:
- User Feedback: Real user experiences help improve the product.
- Market Fit: Determine if users will convert to paid plans.
- User Engagement: Understand engagement and retention patterns.
Mitigating Abuses:
To address free trial abuses, request a credit card during signup to make it harder to create multiple accounts with unique credit cards
Hope this helps!
If you have a B2B business, then one option would be to sell to businesses/orgs instead of to the end-users. Also, if your customers will be affected by the loss of the data stored in your service (such as business continuity issues for orgs, particularly for their customer-facing processes), then they will tend not to switch accounts.