I've decided to offer a Free Trial on my hosting service. I've comce up with 14days to be a good number, as 7 would of been too short, and offering 30 just seems a good way for host jumpers to take advantage.

Do anyone here offering free trials, how long for? And do they help much to you and your customers?

We offer trials, but only on request, it's not an advertised thing.

We pretty much play each trial by ear, and decide what length of time is good.

Be careful with offering trials, many people will take advantage of it, depending on what control panel you're using

I'd say around 14 days as well, its enough time for them to get to know and like your service and staff, whilst not abusing your service too much. Also ensure that you heavily cap their bandwidth and monitor the situation constantly.

Hmm, now I'm not too sure on offering a FREE TRIAL on the website.

Be very careful. I would recommend offering a 14 or 30 day unconditional moneyback guarentee (except for customers who break your aup/tos) If you offer free trial, you may attract the wrong type of customer (i.e. spammers) and it's easy to make up fake information.

Offer a money back guarentee instead.

We wanted to give a free trial but decided instead to offer the first month for $1 so that we could get billing information from them. After the first month, the account is charged at the normal rate.

I would at least get some credit card information from them. You can tell them you won't charge until the end of the trial but at least you have something to check for fraud. And it might help convert those at the end of the trial because they won't have to do anything to continue.

Originally posted by cahostnet
Offer a money back guarentee instead.

Agreed, 30 day money back guarantee seems to work best.

trials can leave you open to all sorts of unwanted ....... um stuff....

So basically your saying, come sign up with me. I will give you free hosting for 14 days including, free space, free bandwith,

I go with gargoyle money back gaurentee is the best

I agree that money back guarantee is better but if you are offering a trial period it would be advisable to get the credit card details first. Also have a hefty penalty that is automaticaly charged for breaking the acceptable use policy.

I personally do not like the 30 day money back guarantee either, as it sends out the very same message: "here's some free hosting".

The money back guarantee that we have in place, is rolling;

If at anytime, as stated in our SLA, a server is up less than 99.9%, over a 30 day period, the customer has access to a 100% refund for that month.

Hrm I want to give a 14 day free trial as it'll attract people who are a bit close with their money to give it a go, and then hopefully buy. I like the idea of the $1. Going to look into it!

Originally posted by Scenes
Hrm I want to give a 14 day free trial as it'll attract people who are a bit close with their money to give it a go, and then hopefully buy.
It will also attract those who never intend on paying but realize you're offering free services so they can spam, host warez, porn (worse even), and as an added beneit, they'll tell all their friends. I wouldn't even consider offering a free trial without payment fo some sort (even $1) up front, and agree that a MBG wold be a better way to offer risk-free trials. It will be abused. Question is when, and how badly, and how many, until you realize it was a bad idea.