While I believe offering a Free plan was extremely beneficial for the growth of TubeBuddy, I wouldn’t automatically include a Free plan in products that I work on moving forward without some thought first.

To be honest, I was specifically hoping to build a product without a Free plan after TubeBuddy just to limit the total userbase and help keep things under control.

But it really depends on the circumstances around what you’re building. In the case of Purrdict, I will offer a Free plan – mainly for virality as explained below.

Reasons you might want to offer a Free plan

• If your userbase will naturally grow into needing paid tiers over time. A brand new YouTuber might be covered with a Free tier but if they continue growing as a YouTuber, they will eventually need bulk updates and other paid features. Play the long game when it makes sense.

• If word of mouth is a key component of your marketing and growth. A happy TubeBuddy customer on a Free plan might regularly post about the product on Social Media driving new installs and paid users from people who read those posts.

• If the product has built-in virality. With Purrdict, I plan to offer a Free plan because everyone who enters a contest will see a display “Do you want to create and run your own contes