Pros and Cons of Free Product Trials

We’ve been offering free trials of our software for years and have come to understand some of the pros and cons of doing so. 

Pros to Offering Free Trials

• Helps assess how serious of a prospect you have
• Provides an opportunity for the prospect to interact with other members of your team (services, support, etc) and show them how great of a company you have
• Sets prospect expectations of what the product does and aligns interests with the company, proving that it is a good fit
• Provides a sense of urgency as the free trial will expire at a certain date

Cons to Offering Free Trials

• Usually more labor intensive, especially for more complex products as services and support teams need to be involved
• Can lengthen the sales cycle as the prospect might have to get other people from his/her organization involved, and actually do real installation work
• Some prospects will keep asking for free trial extensions, which can create an adverse situation with the sales person that wants to solidify the deal or walk away

A couple other items of note:

• The free trial is really a proof of concept project, and should be referred to as such
• Before doing the trial, clear success guidelines must be set up and agreed to by the prospect (e.g. in the proof of concept, we will show x,y, and z working resulting in some benefit, and culminating in the prospect signing a contract)

In almost all cases, I recommend offering free trials (proofs of concept).