The current freemium model adopted by most SaaS companies is disgusting.
It seems to me that product managers start from the end, with a desired product state with all the features that add the most value to customers when combined. Then they cut out two or three of those features — as they were not important by themselves — that happen to support the features most users are looking for.
So these companies are clearly engineering our frustration, using it to trigger a purchase impulse to ease that bad feeling. That is a dark pattern to me.
“Oh, I won’t let them modify the subject line of that transactional email in the free plan.”
“Yes, now we keep our logo in the website navbar. Unless they move to premium.”
OMG, this sucks! sigh
updates
- 20240326 – a simple WordPress plug-in to tweak CSS won’t let you apply code to a single specific page, only all pages website wide. That’s fixed for $50/year.
- 20240326 – create an account for an online form SaaS. As soon as I validate my email an “update now 50% off” button appears on screen. Once I click it, I can only get the yearly plan, not the monthly plan.
cover image generated by MS CoPilot