What are the best ways to monetize a web based service that is free, other than ads?

Question

Launching soon a Web based service and we are looking for multiple ways to monetize our service without creating a pay to use service or an Ad based one ... so any creative / new ideas might help.

Subash Gautam · Accepted Answer

Sell product or service on subscription basis.

Caroline Chiari · Answer

You can:
- Sell Enterprise dedicated instances
- Sell microtransactions and subscriptions (charge for certain features or transactions)
- Sell services around your platform
- Sell user data (not their contact info or anything identifiable, unless it's the type of business you want to do)
- Ask for donations
- Sponsored content
- Affiliate links, so you don't "advertise", you "refer"
- Set a limit on the free tier, a limit at which you feel uncomfortable losing money
- Do consulting using your platform to perform your work

Krishnan Raghupathi · Answer

How about partnering to bundle the service with a complementary item that's of value and charging the bundle owner (i.e. licensing your service with a bundle). Worked for Microsoft :)

Caleb Skinner · Answer

I'd think about using the service you have created to prove that you can perform a task and then sell that task.  I'm guessing that is what @caroline_chiari1 is referring to.  It is a similar approach that home builders use for model homes.

Alparslan Kapani · Answer

Give it free then charge for integration, setup, maintenance or extra requests, premiere support and such...

What are the best ways to monetize a web based service that is free, other than ads?

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