Have you ever heard of the Freemium business model? You’ve probably had this occur to you without knowing. First things first, FREEMIUM is a business model in which a company offers basic or limited features to users at no cost, and then charges a premium for advanced or additional features.
This goes without saying, people love free things, discounts, or paying less for things – even if they are of high value. Moreover, consumers like to know the value they stand to get from a product or service before making a buying decision. It forces companies to spend a lot of money on advertising, sales demonstrations, and other marketing initiatives to provide clients with the knowledge they need.
To avoid any confusion, this is not your typical ”15 days free trial”, free trials often only lasts a week or so, giving the customer a firm deadline by which they need to decide if they want to pay for the product or not.
With Freemium though, the basic premise of the freemium model means a company offers a product, often software, with basic features at no cost.
“The easiest way to get one million people paying is to get one billion people using.” ~ Phil Libin, Evernote
However, there are some restrictions on this product, which occasionally makes the consumer demand more from the service. Giving away the entry-level goods for free makes it simpler to entice people and build a clientele.
The freemium business model offers the advantage of allowing potential customers to try out a product without feeling pressured to buy it.
The needs of your users can be scaled using freemium. A customer may not require full functionality when they first join up, but as they develop, their demands will change. Additionally, it may be more difficult to transfer to another product and start over as needs change since your product is already incorporated into consumers’ typical workflow.
Some everyday examples of Freemium businesses:
Connecting to people, recruiters companies? FREE.
Publishing posts and articles? FREE
To get access to insights about profile visitors, finding leads and targets, and many other functionalities, it will cost you.
YouTube
Free music streaming, watch videos and download SOME video, although WITH interruptive ads. For ad-free streaming of videos and music, as well as unlimited download, you have to pay a fee.
Spotify
Free music streaming; paid subscription required for offline, ad-free listening.
Mailchimp
Free newsletter service with a little monthly cost if you wish to send more newsletters.
Dropbox
Data sharing and storage are both free; extra storage capacity costs money each month.