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I have a better idea for you, which has worked for several others, e.g. Dropbox.

Let your early adopters earn free service by referring others.

Instead of alienating your biggest fans and supporters and power users, you'll be turning them into promoters and marketers.

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It's a good idea, and one that I've run during the closed beta. A handful of the users have a referral credit for referring other beta users, and once we leave the closed beta, their credit will go into effect. I plan on extending the referral program after the launch as well.

GP has already gotten a lot of value out of them, so if keeping them isn't costing much, I'd say grandfather them in for free.

Why for free? Give, like, a 50% discount. Their "free stuff" would be "50% for free".

Or even 90%. Maybe 75% as a compromise. Heck, being grandfathered into a very low price point will make them much less likely to quit even if they no longer use the product, thanks to FOMO. So you may see long-tail income from those early adopters with little expense.

Or a 5%-15% forever discount per referral that's paid for a year. After 6-20 referrals, you're on us - it's cool.

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