Ask HN: When to ask for credit card number?

3 points by BrandonDC 15 years ago | 1 comment

We are putting the finishing touches on our first web application, and I am curious as to what everyone's opinions are on when we should capture our user's credit card data.

Our current plan is to offer a 15 day free trial of our product. We were not planning on getting the user's card information during initial sign up. Our rationale for this was that we wanted to make the initial sign up process as easy as possible. I also assumed that it would reduce the likelihood of chargebacks.

Once the user signed up for their account, they would be able to use the application and save their card information in the application at their convenience. If, after the 15 day trial, they still had not entered their card information, their installation of the application would become "locked" until they entered their card info.

Are there good reasons why this is an inadvisable strategy, and why we would want to get the card information before the trial period begins?

Thanks in advance for your input.

matt1 15 years ago |

If you ask for the credit card number up front, you'll increase the number of people that stay users once the 15 day trial is up, but you'll drastically reduce the number of people signing up for your service.

For a new app, I recommend that you let people sign up without entering their credit card number. You need lots of feedback right now and you won't get it if you ask for the credit card number up front. Plus, getting people to fork over their credit card number will force you to spent a lot of time on your site's design so that it appears credible, which is not something you should be focusing on yet.

If your app takes off you can consider taking the credit card number up front, but until then, get it after the 15 days is up.