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Comment by bachmeier | Hacker News Reader

What's the purpose of a restricted "free" plan with a max of 250 issues? There are enough actually free options out there that the free plan doesn't bring anything to the table. Why wouldn't you do a free trial of an unrestricted plan instead? The obvious thing that stands out is that you'd have no way to test their support before paying.

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We wanted to make the product free for smaller teams to get started without worrying about who to invite. We only count active issue to the limit, and once you're done with them, you can archive them. And yes, we do have support for all users and priority support (faster response times) for paying users. We want to build a long lasting sustainable business and charging for the product is big part of it.

Just some feedback, but I would consider doing a free tier for open source projects which would get your the coverage and in turn the adoption you need. You need to win developers over who in turn influence tool procurements.

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting you should have a better free plan, I was wondering why you have one at all. Free users are expensive and a hassle and I'm skeptical that you'll acquire a lot of paying customers that way. I can't claim to have any idea about the inner workings of this market, though I've spent a lot of time looking at the options in this space. There are plenty of free options for those without the cash to pay $8/user/month. Your free plan isn't particularly compelling.

I imagine the free plan also doubles as a trial for a paid subscription. Moving issue trackers can be a hassle, so having unlimited time to test out the workflow and features for a small team or project makes good sense, and if you decide to switch it should be easy enough to upgrade.

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