Card or no card for free trials?
Quick poll for founders (and anyone who tests out new SaaS tools): do you ask for a credit card upfront, or let people straight in?
We went with requiring a card for kōdlo. The thinking was pretty simple: fewer signups overall, but higher intent—people actually kick the tires instead of bouncing after two minutes. Without a card, you get a flood of accounts that log in once and ghost.
But I’m genuinely torn here. A card wall definitely kills casual curiosity, especially when you're an unknown product. On the flip side, no-card trials often just give you vanity metrics that don't convert.
Two quick questions:
As a user: Does an upfront card scare you off immediately, or depends on the tool/pricing?
As a founder: What model did you pick, and if you ever switched, how did it hit your conversion numbers?
Replies
i usually prefer trying a tool without entering my card details first especially if it's something new. it finds it useful I don't mind paying. But I can se why founders want to filter out people who aren't serious. Have you noticed whether no card trials actually lead to fewer paid users?
@joseph_martin7 not yet, we haven’t switched to no-card trials so far. But we’re actually working on it right now :)
I would argue no card wall.
As a user it is an instant turn off, as handing my credit card data is a big trust ticket that I won’t do for an unknown tool.
From a founder perspective, I am willing to get an influx of accounts and segment that in analytics with triggered events to get the actual number of signups. Then have an automated ghost account cleanup process that runs every 180 days to keep DB overhead low.
@onewaveadrian Even with the credit card requirement, we still offer a free trial, so users can sign up with their card and cancel the subscription right away to test the product with no risk. It seems that even this kind of trial creates a “credit card wall,” even though no actual charge is made. Personally, that came as a surprise to me.
@ivan_telnov Yeah that checks out, I would attribute that behavior to the “trust” component I mentioned.
as a user a card wall on an unknown tool is an instant close for me. if you do switch id gate the card at the moment they hit real value, like first export or first synced deal, so the people who give it are already hooked and you still see where the ghosts drop off
@hitensethiya I feel the same. I'm okay giving my card only if I see real value.
Hiten's point about asking for the card at the first moment of real value feels right to me! An upfront card wall asks for trust before the product has earned any, especially for a tool people haven't heard of yet. Have you thought about letting people in without a card and asking for it when they hit their first real result, like a finished export? That way everyone who reaches that point has already seen what kōdlo does 🙂
This is a tough one! We've debated this as well, but for now, we don't require a card.
With our upcoming launch, we're actually trying something different. We're asking a few questions during onboarding so we can better understand what people are trying to accomplish and give them a more relevant experience.
During beta testing, we noticed those extra steps created some friction, and a few users dropped off. It's a tradeoff we're willing to explore, though, because we're more interested in helping people get real value than simply growing our signup numbers.
I'm curious, have you noticed better engagement or conversion rates since requiring a card, or mainly fewer signups?