Deciding Free vs Paid in B2B Product Packaging
Quick post today on a conversation I’ve been having with some folks in my PM network: how do you decide what stays free vs gets paywalled in your B2B product?
There are of course many in-between monetization paths beyond just a binary free vs paid offering…options like freemium, trials, and services can all be the right lever for your product / motion. But I love frameworks and was very curious if there was a way to determine a path at the feature ideation phase, and today I heard a simple but clear framework for things that absolutely should be in free*
if it helps acquisition
if it helps activation
if it helps retention
* this is not to say that the full version of the feature has to be completely free - but you certainly want a usable, valuable version out there for the reasons above
Basically anything that starts or spins your flywheel…you want to get in front of as many users as possible. And if you have a feature that helps on multiple lifecycle levers, it’s likely a differentiator for your product; said another way, you should find ways to put a (possibly lightweight) version of your differentiators in your free plan.
I’m going to be noodling on this framework further, and possibly picking some B2B products in the market to pressure test whether this holds true.
As always, I’d also love to hear from readers about their decisions on what’s free vs paid in their product - please chime in via comments👇. And if you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing.
further reading / references
I’ve written previously about discerning differentiators in your product
childish drawing / interpretation
