alt Hacker NewsWhy do you have a 14-day money back guarantee instead of a 30-day free trial?
My perception (although I never tried it) is that it reduces the number of people actually trying it and avoids that you have to still pay for the payment platform fee when there is a refund, plus I presume there is also some dedication needed for handling the refund itself.
I speculate that there might be a sweet spot between the impulse purchase and the price level where you do not bother to ask for a refund, even if the tool does not work for you, but still it is counterintuitive for me why not to reach as many potential users as possible at a nearly zero marginal cost and sort of pray for conversion with a much higher user base.
In other words, at this price range with no recurring income, what is the percentage of users who actually to ask for a refund? Is it very low?
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I'm not the author, but generally: It could depend on whether those trial users are worth supporting. You could potentially get a free-rider problem. You could get a lot of support emails from people who never convert anyway.
It's only 10€, so it's pretty well in the impulse-buy category.
To the author: I'd suggest localising the currency, if possible. At least for English speaking locales (US, UK, CA, AU, NZ). The EUR pricing made it look to me like you might not be able to buy it if you're not in Europe. (Edit: I'm in Canada and it shows EUR, not CAD.)
Hey there, This topic always pops up from time to time. First, when I started building macOS apps, the extra work of building a trial mechanism was something I wanted to keep for later. Today, my key management backend already supports that, and when a user personally asks for a trial key, I give it to them. But from my experience, when someone has a free trial, 2 thing can happen: 1. Download and never use 2. Use a little bit, stop using it, and leave the app without buying it.
When someone pays for the app, they try it most of the time immediately. He explores the app, finds issues, and, because he paid for it, will be much more involved, which will provide me with much more accurate feedback.
Also, if something is not working well for him, he writes me, and I benefit from these interactions with the users. A lot of my improvements for my apps are based on "Refund talks" Overall, the upsides outweigh the downsides.
I don't have many refunds, but when I do, it really helps me improve the app. I already had users who asked for a refund, and a few versions later, the app improved based on their feedback, and they repurchased it.
I am sure that some users don't buy without trying, And this is why I am super responsive to refund requests and handle them faster and without "playing games" with this topic.
Hope this makes sense in some way