Why We Charge $7 for Our 7-day Trial
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- Опубликовано: 1 июл 2024
- Paid trials: unheard of in the SaaS industry, yet we have made it work.
In this video, I explain how access to Ahrefs evolved over time, and what eventually led us to charging $1 a day for the trial.
Before you rush into switching your free trial to a paid version, make sure you hear my thoughts on why I think a paid trial works for Ahrefs, but might not necessarily work for you.
⌚ Timecodes:
00:55 The evolution of access to Ahrefs
02:55 Why we switched to 14-day free trial in 2015
04:45 The results of the switch
05:49 The Paulo Coelho Effect
06:37 Switching to paid trial of Ahrefs
07:07 The results of switching to paid trial
08:51 Will paid trial work for you?
Additional resources 👇
The Guardian: Paulo Coelho calls on readers to pirate books
www.theguardian.com/books/201...
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⌚ Timecodes:
00:55 The evolution of access to Ahrefs
02:55 Why we switched to 14-day free trial in 2015
04:45 The results of the switch
05:49 The Paulo Coelho Effect
06:37 Switching to paid trial of Ahrefs
07:07 The results of switching to paid trial
08:51 Will paid trial work for you?
Any particular reason for putting it here rather than in the description?
You know... On the phone it's quite a pain in the ass to scroll through all the suggested videos to finally access the comments section. ¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯
Great video!!
I love this strategy of having articles and videos instead of cold ads.
The strategy and result behind the $7 day was one of the biggest conundrums I had about Ahrefs. I'm so happy you made this video, thank you! #TIM30
you're very welcome :)
It’s really great to see how bootstrapping a company leaves you quite free about having to grow so quickly that you need to take desperate moves to ring the bell. Also gives that state of being able to do sort of long and self service funnels. Amazing. Thank you for sharing Tim! #TIM30
yep... we're in awesome position to be! not having investors and not being pressured to become a unicorn in the next 2-3 years allows us to do things differently
I struggled (and still waffle a bit) with whether to charge or give a free trial for my online guitar lessons. The explanation at the end about paid traffic makes perfect sense. I really appreciate how you talked about the history and the effect of each of the changes that the company went through. #TIM30
"online guitar lessons" - are they pre-recorded or you tutor people over Skype? Because if they're pre-recorded you can just take small bits from your lessons and share them on youtube. I almost bought a course on singing from this guy ---> ruclips.net/video/eTX9LxZ9YUQ/видео.html :)
good to see the final reveal on this. Sad on the fact that before and after numbers aren't there. great insights.
before and after our business growth stayed more or less the same.. so absolute numbers of leads won't really mean much
I did the 7-day trial. It was definitely worth $7. I was able to find about 20 keyword ideas for future blog posts. When I'm done with those, I'll be back for the full version. #TIM30
would be happy to have you as our customer, Robert!
Great and wholly honest insight, it would have been awesome to have some stats to clarify your findings, but as you freely admit, you'd need to go back in time and track from then onwards. What I found useful was how your trial service 'evolved' - it was not a "pay now" scenario, it was what worked for Ahrefs at each stage of the company's growth. #TIM30
we didn't track any stats.. we were just looking at our growth curve and it stayed more or less the same during that time
It's so refreshing to hear such authentic content from a company. I hear about you on an ad on the Connected podcast on relay.fm. Then I took a course with Evergreen Profits - their Perpetual Audience Growth course - and you probably know that they use your product pretty heavily.
I'll be honest - I found this video when I clicked the notification in my paid account, after logging in to cancel. It's not because I don't love your product. From what I've seen of it so far, I can see that it's going to be essential for me. But I'm a bootstrapped startup and have been working for only four months. ALL my clients have just let me go because they've had to close during these crazy times so I really need to take care of my expenses.
Your video here - with its authentic and honest content - has had me walk away from the cancel button, at least for another month. I'm building my website right now and it's probably the time that I will benefit the most from your product. I just need to manage my time properly and focus over the next couple of months, so that when the new normal kicks in, I'm ready.
Thank you for putting this content out there!
#tim30
hey Cams! HUGE THANKS for your kind words! Here at Ahrefs we try to be as open as we can about what is happening inside the company when we feel that our experience might help others to succeed. Good thing you didn't cancel your account... You'll know why the moment you login there ;)
@@ahrefspodcast Oh wow. Thank you 🙏
It was great to get the inside scoop on the trial. I just finished my free trial yesterday and signed up right away. Your strategy really works! I'm now a diehard fan of Ahrefs. #Tim30
thanks, Suki! :)
Hi Suki, congratulations, you've won the 30 minute Skype call with Tim! Please email me at george.dolgikh@ahrefs.com for details -George-
I think you can make it work on paid traffic. Direct offer > mini-webinar/VSL > paid trial. The paid trial will subsidise your traffic cost. For trial sign ups you could even do a limited-time-only upsell to purchase the full subscription on the "thank you" page, subsiding your traffic costs even more.
interesting.. have you seen any software company do that? aside from Clickfunnels of course :)
@@ahrefspodcast Not that I'm aware of. Would be a fun test, for sure.
It's fair to start with my praise to value-based approach that you Tim and Ahrefs promote by doing. Like Steve Jobs who made many great things to the industry aside of the fact that I spent some good amount of money on Apple devices. It something deeply ethical to do a good job. It teaches us all, how to be better. Standing applause 👏👏👏
Today's video is a good start of something new but it sounded too amateurish to me. Aside of the story that being told I've heard it in a bit of a different manner:
- We started with a smart move of decrease costs (less time&efforts) for users to try our service. Also it's smart as the new service don't have enough reputation to drive Sign Up's.
- Then we moved to a 14-days trial that's rather easy to hack and it lead us to a fail (as so many free-riders weren't expected). But it carried some goodies also as people continued to use it for free. And 8 month omg it's a long time without fixes.
- Then the fix chopped off everyone who weren't paying and turned out not to impede the growth.
It sounded as decisions were rather situational.
It's a 100% normal real world story that signals lack of maturity in areas of creating high-quality experiments and a lack of care of analyzing the product usage data. Although it's a typical pitfall where quality of implementation trades off for simplicity that allows working at a higher pace.
I'm sure that Ahrefs should and actually is developing better expertise not only in the core business but in product development, product discovery, user centered design and other things that help evolve the product.
#TIM30 as you asked for a meaningful response, here it is. Hope that it didn't sound negative. I actually wanted to pay a back for stuff that I've learned from Ahrefs. Good people create good products. Ahrefs is more than a good product. Keep moving! 👍
thanks for your comment, Alex! Whether or not our approach to the problem looked amateurish or situational - we're a 50 person team on our way to 100M ARR. So we must be doing something right ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@ahrefspodcast Sure thing, you're doing it great. It's never wrong to level up the game along the way. What wasn't mentioned is the honesty of the video, it's clearly positive. Keep on going!
Great video. You did make a good choice with the $7 for 7 day paid trial. I used it.
I was moving over a 17-year-old Adult ADHD coaching HTML website with 180+ pages built in Dreamweaver, not mobile-friendly, not https to Wordpress, responsive and https.
I totally redesigned it, changed navigation, titles, permalinks, silo’d it etc. I used Ahrefs 7 day trial to go over and identify all the many problems from that and there were many given I’m not a programmer and designer and I did it all myself over 2 years hand pasting the text into a text editor, then into WP, then formatting it then manually pasting the links in.
And to see where my traffic was coming from on my old site.
A lot of these free trials are hobbleware.
They only give you a partial demonstration of the features and it could be that the company chose to not give you the features that YOU wanted and might have made you buy them. So you try and abandon it and remember not to ever try it again.
For example, the main thing I used in Ahrefs was the site audit tool. If you didn't have that and just the others, I would likely just quit it early and never use it again and never recommend it as often as I did.
Giving a full-featured trial is a smart idea because you get to test out all the features of the program and you are more likely to buy or at least recommend it to others.
Ahrefs site audit was amazing helped me with 301 problems, meta description problems, H1 problems, redirect chains, slow pages https to http, 404s, and so many other things. And having the problems clickable linked to a detailed explanation was very useful for the more obscure SEO problems that I didn’t know about.
My new site addcoach4u.com is far better as a result of using Ahrefs. I identified and fixed many problems, some I’d eventually likely find on my own, or with other free tools but many I probably would not. And even those I'd find on my own would take far more time and effort on my part to fix than using your product. I got great utility out of using it. And naturally, when you get really good, or really bad results from something, you often tell others.
I eventually will go back to be a paying customer once I catch up on some outreach on my new website.
But I’ve already recommended Ahrefs it to other people as well as during an internet marketing non-profit Meetup with 60+ people in the room, I briefly demo’d it and explained why they should use it and pay the $7 for it.
Even if I never use Ahrefs again, which I doubt, I’ve already highly recommended it to so many people because I got such great results from it, and I’ve used a lot of other SEO tools over the last 17 years like SEMRush and yours is far better. So likely at least some of them will check it out and possibly buy it or check it out and your blog and share some of the posts or tell others.
So your financial, reputational, SEO and traffic ROI from that $7 trial will probably be very good.
And if you gave me a free hobbleware trial like so many other SAAS companies do, I might not have done that. Or be wiling to later be a paying customer.
Other SAAS companies should do what you do.
You should also give a longer list of the feature of the site audit tool on this page here
ahrefs.com/site-audit and also list more features and screenshots on the blog post you link to from that page.
You can put the rest at the bottom but there are far more features that I benefitted from on the site audit tool that would help sell your product much more.
Thanks
Pete
#TIM30
Hey Pete! Thanks for leaving such a great comment.. I took a few paragraphs and shared them with our product team. You've made our day, mate! :) I'm very glad you got so much value out of Ahrefs trial alone. As you rightfully said, we don't focus on converting people to paying customers as much as we focus on helping people figure out SEO. If we succeed at that - we're confident that whenever those people will need an SEO tool in future they will come back to us. Once again thanks for your comment!
@@ahrefspodcast You're welcome, and thank them for putting the time and effort into the site audit tool, making it so comprehensive and well organized. And actionable. Plus the what does this mean clickable tips. By focus on creating a really useful tool it will make it easier for others to share it and more to eventually buy. SEMRush had a lot of keyword content, but their site audit was not so good, not so actionable, not so well organized, poorer UI. vs Ahrefs.
I can't figure out how to sign up for the paid 7-day trial. I don't see it on your website. Thanks, Ellie
Tim, I am great day of your Work and Ahrefs.
Ahrefs is 10 times better than its competitors, but one big thing where I find Ahrefs lacking is absence of Affiliate program, and this is huge because as a blogger, if I want SEO tool, I'll buy Ahrefs but when it comes to recommending SEO tools to my visitors, I'll definitely go for promoting semrush because of the commission I'll make, so, I think if Ahrefs also launches an affiliate program, it can grow even faster!
Thank You
Hey, Tim, do you have the whole Fallout mascot collection? I see you're rotating them every video, which is a cool gimmick. And I used to love Fallout until it's more recent incarnations. :) So kudos for that.
no, I don't have all of them :) Just saw a bunch of them being discounted in a toy store and grabbed all that were left :) but yeah, I'm pretty big fan of Fallout.. especially #2 :)
you are looking sharp today bro :P
lol thanks!
Amazing content man! Hope you're safe and sound during this hard times. Was wondering how did you segment your web visitor through GA and identify which belongs to the warm, cold, or hot leads group? Thank you! #TIM30
we don't even have GA.. so we don't segment anyone. And why would we do this? It's not as if we're serving them a different version of our homepage. And we also don't have sales to follow up with the warmest leads.
Not only a great model for attracting subscribers to your Saas platform, but a fantastic illustration of how and why content marketing works. #TIM30
Thanks! :)
great video,,,do you consider it ethical if someone buys a trial and share it with their friends?
Ethical or not, it violates our Terms of Service 😐
What you said makes sense. I'm curious as to how you come up with the subscription fees for the different levels of membership. I have tried your trial and was satisfied with the tools but as a relatively new blogger with little traffic, I still can't justify the cost of the membership. I do try educating myself though with your awesome articles and professionally tailored RUclips videos. I hope that there will be a time when I can justify pulling the trigger and becoming a fully-fledged paying subscriber. #TIM30
Hey John, the pricing we have is largely determined by the industry itself. We're not the only tool of a kind, and we were quite late to the party actually. So we looked at what others were charging and adjusted our offering based on our business expenses, re-investment opportunities & things like that.
I love Ahrefs and I love this marketing strategy. Not many companies have a world-class product and the patience to execute this strategy. #TIM30
Thanks, Matthew!
Pretty neat, gotta give it to you man, this is better than many of the online courses out there about DM. I interned at a company a while ago and faced some challenges. Would be pretty excited to speak to you about those :)
#TIM30
thanks! glad you're enjoying my videos :)
Hey Tim, do you plan for a Scholarship-like plan for Ahrefs? For students.
Not really, but we've released Ahrefs Webmaster Tools - check it out!
@@ahrefspodcast already signed up for the first day. I'm looking out for Ahrefs search engine as well..
I'm an Ahrefs fan w/o an Ahrefs plan. Haha it rhymes
Fascinating journey! Why just a week, though. Why not 10 days for $10? (for example)
we had 14 days before and decided to divide by two :) Plus $7 is a one-digit sum, while $10 is two digits. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
9.99 works 😂
@@ahrefspodcast 10 days $9 :)
Tim, thanks for sharing. I got your email about your Blogging for business course and love it - super useful, entertaining and easy to follow. Current affairs completely detailed my cycling travel business. Your course is shining a light on how to keep going. Thank you again and it's inspiring to know AHREFS is a bootstrapped company without any investors. #TIM30
Glad you enjoyed my course, Alison :)
Congratulations, Alison! You've won a 30 minute Skype call :) Please email george.dolgikh@ahrefs.com for details
Great Video Tim!
Do You have plans to diffent charging for different countries? Because here in Brazil we do love your tool, but it becomes quite expensive to buy a subscription.
1 dollar = 5 reais
5X time costs is kinda meh.
Love your channel!
#TIM30
no, I'm afraid we don't have such plans right now, sorry
Thanks, Tim. Soon I'm planning to run a flash promotion with a paid trial offer (first time for me).
I've got such ideas:
1-1-1 (1 week access for 1 EUR during 1 day sale
or
3-3-3 (3 weeks access for 3 EUR during 3 days sale)
What do you think about it? #TIM30
If you can share, what % of revenue is attributable to purely the paid trial currently?
I don't think we ever bothered to calculate that .. but with just $7 per trial the % would be pretty low
Hey, Tim. Could you make a video talking about the setup of Ahrefs site (theme, plugins, server setup etc).
most of Ahrefs is custom coded, but that's a great idea and I might indeed do that!
@@ahrefspodcast , that would be great!! Even if it's mostly custom coded I believe it would still be quite interesting content, especially the server setup :)
I only use ahrefs
I believe you guys have had a fantastic start to the business. And it would probably be very insightful for you to share the "genesis story" with people such as myself that are contemplating starting an entrepreneurial path soon. How did you bootstrap, how did that 100% free strategy helped you grow (to the best of your intuition), etc. Thanks in advance! #TIM30
hi Viorel! yeah, I'm contemplating interviewing Dmitry about how he started Ahrefs back in the days. Unfortunately I can't tell this story myself because I joined only about 5 years later
DEAR SIR
I AM SEO PROFESSIONAL. I WANT TO BUY LIFETIME LICENCE OF AHREF. SO IF ITS POSSIBLE LET ME KNOW
WHATS THE PROCEDURES. PLEASE
03.01.2021
It's great video.
#TIM30
wondering if you can offer a super lite version like bloggers at a reasonable price such as KWFinder or Mangools #TIM30
Thank you Tim! I'm a new customer of Ahrefs and I really like it. Do you have an affiliate program? #TIM30
Thanks! No, we don't have an affiliate program
I am a die-heart fan of timsoulo. What an explanation?. I love all those old ahrefs videos. Am Speechless to elaborate.
Please help me, I want purchase ahrefs t-shirt and coffee cup.
lol.. thanks, Abhishek! we give out swag to our long-term customers from time to time.. so if you've been with Ahrefs for a while - ping our support team and they might help ;)
Is there any concern that ahrefs will hit a ceiling in the "SEO industry"? #tim30
I think the SEO industry itself is still growing and getting bigger.. well, at least it WAS getting bigger up until the virus hit everyone.
I'm going to cheat here and add a second comment, somewhat related to the first one. If you would start a SaaS business from scratch and very little money, knowing the Ahrefs success story in minute details, what would your first 6 months look like? Where would you spend your time and money? #TIM30
it's hard for me to say, since I only joined Ahrefs 5 years after it was launched, so I didn't see the full story. But to answer your question - I'd start with doing things I'm good at. Dmitry is amazing with technology, so he started from building a solid technical foundation. I'm good with marketing, so if I were to start a SaaS I'd start with building an audience around a problem I want to solve. What are you good at? :)
@@ahrefspodcast - past 17 years of XP would appear to show I'm pretty good at building websites and building teams that build websites, and making sure they grow organically and via paid channels. So by this heuristic, any business based on a web presence that converts visitors to clients would be a good startup project to tackle, starting with building a team around solving the problem. The idea makes sense, of course, but I'm really curious to understand the first few weeks and months of that, the plans made before and the degree of adaptation to the market or sticking to the grand vision and so on. That's what scares me the most from the idea of becoming an entrepreneur, there's a degree of uncertainty which you probably can't plan for whatever you do, and I'm a "perfectionist" - that is to say, I'm scared and paralyzed because of the potential of failure in something completely new like being an entrepreneur. But I guess it's just something I need to overcome, since it's essential to fail in order to progress - or do anything at all, really. Right? :)
@@ahrefspodcast By the way, you have fantastic content on this channel, and your "Blogging for Business" course is awesome! :) Keep up the great work, Tim!
DEAR SIR
I AM SEO PROFESSIONAL. I WANT TO BUY LIFETIME LICENCE OF AHREF. SO IF ITS POSSIBLE LET ME KNOW
WHATS THE PROCEDURES. PLEASE
03.01.2021