In May of 2022 we stopped offering a free forever quiz building plan. At the time it was TBD whether we’d bring it back. After a 10 month test we’ve decided to indefinitely turn off our free plan. As with everything in life this could change in the future.
Here’s what we learned during our 10-month test that led to us deciding not to offer a free quiz building plan anymore.
- We have more time to assist paying customers: Systemic changes in the last few years have made it increasingly difficult to offer a free plan. I won’t get into specifics but it’s gotten expensive and time consuming to maintain a free offering. Without having to dedicate resources to a free plan we can offer a better service to our paying customers. We can be more present to our customers’ needs, build more of what they need, and stay focused on creating the best possible experience.
- We eliminate noise: The needs of free users vs. paying customers are vastly different. There are also a lot more free customers than paid users. Inevitably what happens is you hear a lot more from free users than paying customers, which skews the direction of product development. In our view this is a disservice to the customers who are putting hard earned money into using our product. By removing the noise of free users we get more clarity around how we can be truly useful to our paying customers.
- Our business becomes more sustainable: Interact is a bootstrapped software company, which is a rarity. What it means is we have very limited resources and if we don’t carefully measure our commitments then it leads to burnout. We highly value the wellness of our own team and don’t want to make decisions that lead to more work than we can feasibly handle. By removing the need to support 10’s or 100’s of thousands of free users it makes our business more sustainable which both benefits our team and also our customers who can rest assured that Interact will not dissappear overnight or drastically change our level of service due to burnout or running out of funding.
I understand the frustration felt by existing free users who are utilizing Interact quizzes. In leading there is no way to please everyone, and this decision was made in an effort to benefit the most possible people in the long run.