Should Freelancers Offer Free Trials?

> A free trial is a trust-building exercise, whether a freelancer or a SaaS business uses it.

I was a freelance for two years, and I can say without a shred of doubt that this is terrible advice.

If you are offering tailored services, most people will gladly take your time and pay nothing in return, regardless of how appealing your portfolio may be. That's money that you will never earn, time you will never recoup, and just a speck in your portfolio nobody cares about, because serious customers don't care about week long projects.

While the article does offer pros and cons of this practice, there’s nothing in it to suggest the author has ever been a freelancer and used the approach. Instead he seems to be writing from the perspective of someone who’s used freelancer services in exchange for what sounds an awful lot like the tech version of “exposure”.

I’m sure someone can make a good argument for why the approach can be valuable under certain circumstances, but I’m not sure what makes the author an authority on what works best for a freelancer.

If you need to offer free trials to get work, do it. If you don’t need to offer free trials to get work, don’t.

A related concept is the idea of solving the biggest risk first in any problem. If your biggest risk as a freelancer is getting clients, then pricing at free initially might be a great idea. But if your biggest risk is something else, it might not make sense.

Once someone has many clients, they’re sometimes better off doing the total opposite end of the spectrum (the opposite of a good idea is also often a good idea!) charging a fee even for what would previously have been a free consult/intro call meeting (in some markets). High paying serious clients aren’t turned off by it, so time wasted shrinks drastically. And you can always skip the fee with a serious client you’re introduced to via a referral, because you don’t care about the fee on the consult call, it’s just a weeding mechanism and a signal of seriousness and legitimacy, so if both of those aims are already accomplished because it’s via an intro you trust who makes you look good, the consult fee doesn’t matter.

I wouldn't offer anything for free, but more than once I have offered a 100% money-back satisfaction guarantee for the first week or two of a new contract. This has helped particularly clients that have not worked with a contractor before. The client is relieved of potential remorse or sunk cost, and I still get paid for all my work.

As a consultant, I think that this is terrible advice. If you are poorly connected in the industry, you can charge your services well below market rates (ie $75/hr). In this case, be clear that these are special introductory rates. But you should not work for free.

Consultants usually invoice after the work is complete anyway, on 30 day terms or similar, so your client may already have 45-60 days to pay. If you want to add a whole bunch of free work in front of that, you’re setting yourself up with too much risk. (Remember, you’ll get clients that don’t pay because they either spend all their money, or didn’t get the funding they expected.)

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Noooooooo.

I think there's value - for both sides - in having a 30-60 minute chat for free. Doesn't have to be a formal interview. But exploring the problem-space to see if you're a good fit for each other is sensible. A plumber might come round to inspect the pipes before quoting for a job - a freelancer is no different.

I've also offered half-day sessions if people are unsure of the value I provide. Paid of course.

Naturally, if it's for a charity or good cause, I'll work out a discount. And that discount might be hefty.

But working for free is a mug's game.

I don't offer a free trial, as I don't work for free, but I allow for a 1 hour 'cup of coffee meetup' free of charge that is strictly 1 hour and no more. I use this for trust building and for planning a rough draft of the project. If my intuition says it can't work or I'm taking on too much, or the client is demanding too much, I will let them know.

This is just a very long-winded way of describing "paying in exposure". You don't ask your mechanic to replace one part for free and then you'll see if you pay him for the rest. In my experience, when freelancers struggle to find work it's often because they're expecting work to come to them. When that happens it's nice, but when you're starting out, that's the exception, not the norm. You have to go out there and look for work, sell yourself and your services, fail, and try again. That's hard, but all good things are hard.

As we say here : all work deserves payment. I don't work for free, end of story. If someone wants a « free trial », I can just go work with someone who doesn't.

When I built Shopify sites for hire, I tried a version of this. I didn't write code or design stuff for free, but anyone could schedule a free 30 minute phone conversation. It was VERY successful and before long I was turning away new clients every day.

The customer saw the free half hour as a way to find out what I know and what I would do specifically for their project, like free lawyer advice. I saw the time as a sales call people had invited themselves to! I made sure that by the end of the call the customer was pumped and wanting more. I made the calls fun and funny and informative.

The time given away was well worth the advertising investment. After all, the customers who hired me already knew my personality and work style and they knew I wasn't full of BS. That's a great way to start a professional relationship and to build trust before you ask for money.

No.

If you can't get customers - real, honest to god, paying customers - as a freelancer without offering a free trial, you don't have enough of a network to be a successful freelancer.

If a client wants a free trial I would be skeptical of the long term relationship.

I view paying a freelancer for two weeks as the cost of doing business in the case they don’t work out.

I will agree you need to know someone to get your foot in the door. Nice gigs are more about trust and less about money.

Have tried this in the deep past, did not work and attracted the worst kind of client

I would never ask a freelancer to work for free. We value people for their time and pay people for it. We pay people for any code or aptitude tests we put them through during the hiring process.

VALUE PEOPLE'S TIME. This is not that hard.

It works the other way around: if we have a long and healthy working relationship and the sweet, sweet cash keeps flowing without a hitch, I just might offer a freebie. Otherwise it's a big bag of nope.

Mike Monteiro, "F*ck You, Pay Me": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

I'm familiar with two freelancing maxims

- Never work for free

- Charge more

No.

Where can I get freelance accountants and lawyers to do a complex work for me for free please?

Awful advice. Do plumbers/electricians/barbers offer a “free trial” to see if you like their work?

I’m not a freelancer, but I’d hang my head in shame if I ever paid zero for someone’s work, even if I hated it. I value their time.

Watch this talk by Mike Montero explaining why not. https://vimeo.com/22053820

For example, blog posts?

The points are to communicate and demonstrate.

The future of freelancing looks very bright

Betteridge's law says no, and so do I.

Maybe offer reduced rates for some initial introductory work, but certainly not free.

It's not clear if he is actually a developer/freelancer, or an 'entrepreneur' who would obviously benefit from legions of people offering 7 days of free work. Follow the money, I guess.

nope