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Comment by stillmotion | Hacker News Reader

So strange that your survey basically tells me I'm not a good fit if I'm not willing to consider paying for your product after a 14 day trial. How about let me try the product first and then I can make that assessment?

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It is also weird that I cannot see the prices right away. Sunsama could be great, but if the asking price is too much, I won't even bother.

I go looking for the price first in just about every SaaS I use. If it can't be transparent about the price then it's probably not the service for me.

I enjoyed the survey and how well it ties into the onboarding flow. There's probably better word choice for "are you willing to pay" but this does filter out users that just want the next free thing. Better word choice might be "assuming you f*cking love it would you pay $20/mo for a Daily Planner"

I'd guess as a newly launched product they care most about getting some power users evangelizing it while they iterate on the packaging. It might not even be "delightful" yet but that doesn't mean users that need it won't pay for it to just work.

Thanks for that feedback. We put that in place so that folks weren't surprised after using it that Sunsama doesn't have a free tier since people assume that all productivity tools have a free version. If you just change your answer, you can proceed!

Yes, but the sale shouldn't end because I just said no. There should be room left for me to be delighted by the product, such that I convert into a paying user. Instead, I feel alienated and not at all interested in trying it in the future.

Indeed, this should have been incredibly obvious and is the whole reason free trials exist.

This is confusing, you said in your original comment that you were filtered out because you said you wouldn't consider paying for the product, now you say you might if the product delighted you.

So which is it? Why are you alienated by a product that says "we're not for you" if you have no interest in being a paying customer?

Not OP but I had a similar emotional reaction when getting to that point of the survey. It's not logical... on reflection I think it has to do with the sense of los of autonomy. The survey wants me to say that I'd be willing to spend money on it before I can try it, but I want to try it before I decide if I'm willing to spend money.

I think it could be solved for stubborn people like me if the survey got to that point and said "okay, if you're sure, you can still click here to request access but after 14 days you won't be able to continue to use it without signing up. We think you'll be persuaded!" -- or whatnot.

Seems fair enough that people should be able to try the free trial without having to agree that they're theoretically willing to pay 20/mo

I guess the other way to explicitly force people to sign up with a credit card. I would guess this mechanism, asking you if you are willing to pay is better that asking you to PROVE you are willing to pay by starting a free trial with a credit card.

Thanks for bringing this up. In fact, we also chose a "opt in" upgrade, where you pay after your trial is up. I'm of the opinion that "opt out" trials are a dark pattern. That being said, we realize the wording in the survey can be off putting but we think it's the right way to communicate expectations from the beginning and in the long run.

Not the OP either, but I'm not going to commit that I'm willing to pay before even trying the service, and I do pay for a bunch productivity tools (Notion, Forest, + others).

I agree that the "opt-out" is not great, but I would change it to just a warning "This is paid software, after the trial you will need to subscribe".

Why even have this survey? Just make it a 14 day free trial but say upfront that it's paid afterwards, and let people try the product themselves, which is how most paid with free trial apps are currently. Adding an additional filter in the form of a survey just removes potential customers.

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