Prospective customers get the paid product, or most of it, free for a limited period and must pay or downgrade when it ends. Includes reverse trials (a trial that falls back to a free tier).
How Free Trial works
A buyer judges the paid product by using it, which shortens evaluation; the deadline forces a decision, so conversion depends on reaching value before the trial ends.
How companies won with Free Trial
From the win chains in Strategy Canon case studies: what the winner did, and what its rival did at the same step.
vs. Motive · 2017–21
Samsara
Sell to operational complexity through direct reps and free trials
What it did
Prospects filtered by operational complexity, not size
Motive
'We started with the small fleet' (2018): 500 to 30,000+ companies in a year on the mandate
The analyst lands with one copy; sales expands the account
What it did
Free trial and a $1,000 single copy (2010); sales and marketing staff 74 (2010) to 360 (2013)
Qlik
Also land-and-expand with free downloads (2010), but the land was a departmental app and about half of license revenue came through 1,100+ channel partners (Q1 2010)
How long can a prospect use the product free, and how many customers start that way?
Who names it
Author
What they call it / where it appears
OpenView +
Free trials and reverse trials
ProductLed +
Time to value
Note. Near miss: A sales-run proof of concept for one enterprise account. Does not count: A permanently free plan (Freemium Model), a free pilot negotiated by sales (Land and Expand), or a money-back guarantee.