Breaking into GTM

We are about to launch. Should we go with freemium or a free trial?

The short answer

Start with a free trial unless you have a specific reason not to. The benchmark data is consistent: freemium brings in more signups but converts far fewer of them, while a trial brings in fewer, better-qualified people and roughly doubles the free to paid rate. Freemium earns its keep when your product gets more useful as more people in a company use it, or when a free user creates something other people see, because then the free tier is a distribution channel rather than a discount. If neither is true, freemium just gives away revenue and fills your funnel with people who will never pay. You can always add a free tier later once you know which single action predicts that someone will pay.

Go deeper, your way

4 hand-picked resources, 1 India-specific, 4 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.

The same ground, at another level

How product-led growth reads from a different seat.

Our self-serve funnel converts at about 2 percent from signup to paid. Where do I even start looking? Do not touch the pricing page yet. Split the funnel into visit to signup, signup to activated, activated to paid, and look at which of the three is... Doing the work 4 resources → We are sales-led today and I want to add a self-serve motion. What order do I build it in? Backwards from where you already have proof. You already know which customers succeed and what they did in week one, so start by instrumenting that... Leading a GTM team 4 resources → How did Postman actually build product-led growth out of India, and what is copyable? Postman started as a free Chrome extension Abhinav Asthana built for himself, spread through developers who had the problem daily, and only became ... How the best do it 4 resources →

Terms in this answer

Freemium

People also ask

What does product-led growth actually mean, and how is it different from just having a free trial? A free trial is a tactic. Product-led growth is a decision about who does the convincing. In a PLG business the product is the main way people find... Breaking into GTM 5 resources → How do I know whether my product can even work self-serve? Three things have to be true at once. A single person has to get real value on their own, without their IT team, their manager, or a data migration... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → I just joined a PLG company as my first GTM job. What do I actually do all day if the product sells itself? You spend your days on the parts of the journey the product cannot see. Someone has to figure out why 80 percent of signups never come back, write ... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → Our self-serve funnel converts at about 2 percent from signup to paid. Where do I even start looking? Do not touch the pricing page yet. Split the funnel into visit to signup, signup to activated, activated to paid, and look at which of the three is... Doing the work 4 resources → How do I decide what goes in the free tier and what sits behind the paywall? Free should contain everything a single person needs to succeed alone, and paid should start exactly where the value stops being personal and start... Doing the work 4 resources → Sales wants to call every signup. How do I decide which ones deserve a human? Score on three things and only three: does the account look like someone who buys from us, have they done the thing inside the product that predict... Doing the work 4 resources →

Also in Starting Up

The same ground, over in Grow & market, our Starting Up track.

What growth metrics should I actually track as an early-stage startup? Track one North Star metric that captures real customer value (weekly active users, orders shipped, revenue retained) plus the inputs that move it.... 3 resources → Should I even be running paid ads at this stage? Only if you already have retention and a clear sense of what a customer is worth; otherwise you're paying to fill a leaky bucket. Most early startu... 2 resources →
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