Ask HN: How to control users abusing the free credits and demo It's the 3rd month of https://extracttable.com released to the internet. While it attracted a couple of bulk purchases and 30+ small packs, but I'm seeing the rise in visitors abusing the service it in 2 ways |
While frustrating we see it was daily business to block some users. Overall it costs us time but rarely lost revenue. Those users willing to register 10 accounts don't convert to paid accounts much.
Free trials requiring credit card will help, it's more work to setup and will lower the number of signups.
Well, there are instances in our case who are paid users now.
We are operating the service under 50% margin after op cost - our closest competitor in price, charges 2-5x to ours.
I'm afraid (at least at this point of time) to put the CC requirement upfront. I may eventually go for it, if we bleed more.
Thanks for sharing your experience
So restrict the free tier to an amount that allows them to try it while limiting intensive usage, and then ask for a prepaid entry/starter plan for more (don’t just rely on active credit cards as they can be generated infinitely - you need to actually take money from them).
Data from Purchased Credits neither be used nor shared
Data from free/promotional/demo will be used internally ;)Also, keep in mind that only a small percentage of the people that use the system will signup to pay so don't be surprise of the number of people trying the system for free versus signups.