Here's how I see the difference between us and Chompstack: there are no for-fun restaurants.
We have a free plan because...
1. some people are just drive-by gawkers, who will rarely sign up at all, and maybe one day if they actually need time tracking they'll come back.
2. some people refuse to give CC details until they've checked it out
3. because of the nature of the app/data, it costs us nothing in terms of resources to have a lot of free users - it's not like social network data or file storage - and we do not offer support to free users
4. for people who use time tracking for their business, the premium features (invoicing, many projects, multiple people) are huge benefits
That was the free part... for the "very cheap package" idea, we're working on a paid version of Freckle that has some premium features (multiple projects, etc) but not the ones to do with earning money (invoicing), that'll offer to non-hourly-billing productivity nuts for a lower price.
That's about as far as we'll go, though, I think :)
I have learned more about pricing stuff from you than I hoped! Thanks for the valuable insight. I have one more question that does not apply to you and Freckle directly now, but I was wondering if you could share some thoughts on it anyway. Before launching a product, how important is it to have a marketing page visible on our website?
I'm Amy, by the way. And I'm starting to write more about my biz/approach to biz @ http://unicornfree.com if you're interested :)