14-day Pro trial instead of free-forever plan: +268% paid sign-ups
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsSending the main sign-up button to a 14-day full-feature trial of the $10/month Professional plan, instead of a limited free-forever account, raised paid Professional sign-ups by 268.14%.
Acuity Scheduling, an online scheduling tool, ran this test itself and it was published as a VWO case study.
The variant asked for card details up front, so this changed the offer, not just the page.
- Paid Professional plan sign-ups: +268.14%, with a 99.99% chance to beat the original.
- Premium plan ($19/month) sign-ups: +77.78%, but this was not statistically significant.
- Total sign-ups, including free accounts, were not reported, so the effect on top-of-funnel volume is unknown.
The change
The main sign-up path moves from a free-forever plan to a 14-day paid-plan trial.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The main sign-up button led to a free-forever account with limited features. Users were expected to upgrade to a paid plan from inside the app.
Variant
The same button led to a 14-day trial of the Professional plan with all features unlocked, with card details entered at sign-up.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A survey of users who deleted free accounts found they wanted more features than the free plan offered. A full-feature trial gave them that.
- Trial users got to use the paid features from day one, so they could see the value before being asked to pay.
- Users on a free-forever plan get used to paying nothing, and some chose to leave rather than upgrade.
- asking for a card up front filters for more serious buyers, which lifts paid conversion but may cut total sign-ups.
Caveats: This changed the offer itself, including a card requirement, not just the page design. Overall free sign-ups were not reported, and sample size and duration were not shared.
Who ran it
Acuity Scheduling ran this test and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Acuity Scheduling →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we send new visitors to a time-limited trial of our paid plan instead of a free-forever tier, then more of them will become paying customers because they will experience the paid features before deciding.
- Primary metric
- Paid plan sign-ups (or trial-to-paid conversions)
- Guardrails
- Total sign-ups, including free
- Trial-to-paid conversion and early churn
- Refund or chargeback rate
- Who should test it
- SaaS products with a freemium tier where free users rarely upgrade and the paid features are the main value. It may not suit products that rely on free users for growth, virality or SEO-driven sign-ups that expect a free plan.
Questions
Is a free trial better than a freemium plan?
It depends on your product. In this test a 14-day trial of the paid plan produced far more paid sign-ups than a free-forever plan.
Freemium can still win when free users bring in other users or long-term upgrades.
Should I ask for a credit card at trial sign-up?
Asking for a card usually reduces trial sign-ups but raises the share that convert to paid.
Track both numbers, plus total revenue, before you decide.
How long should a SaaS free trial be?
Long enough for users to reach the key moment of value.
Acuity used 14 days; test shorter or longer trials against your own activation data.
Similar tests
AGConsult