We used to believe every SaaS needed a free tier, but hard to use apps usually lose free signups right at onboarding. Without built-in community templates or direct guidance most people drop off within minutes.
Switching to a short paid trial forces users to have skin in the game making them more likely to walk through setup examples and discover real value.
Our email list hit 40k subscribers, but open rates dropped below 12%. I was terrified to clean the list thinking a big subscriber count meant more potential buyers.
We finally deleted 12k people who hadn't opened a single email in six months. right after open rates jumped to 28% and weekly email revenue went up by 15% because main inbox placement improved.
How often do you prune inactive contacts from your newsletter list?