This Trial Strategy Nearly Doubled Paid Subscribers
Copies it for your coding agent, which checks the fit and builds it · The whole record, as markdown
Grammarly’s upgrade rates after mixing a limited number of paid suggestions into free users’ writing, as described by former growth lead Albert Cheng on Lenny’s Podcast, October 2025. No baseline, period or sample given.
Company accounts, not independently verified.
- 2 entries · company accounts
- 2 entries · untested
From Grammarly, Zumba, BoldVoice
Overview
Give people who have not paid a capped, real sample of what paying unlocks (a few premium suggestions among the free ones, one complete class, the first day of the plan) then ask. Grammarly says upgrades nearly doubled; BoldVoice found harder gates drew refunds.
People judge a paid tier by what the free product shows them. Grammarly’s free users only ever saw spelling and grammar fixes, so both the brand and the product told them Grammarly was a spelling checker (Albert Cheng, Grammarly).
Fits when
- Products whose paid value shows up in the person’s own work or session: suggestions, a lesson, a plan
- Free tiers that today show only the basic job, so free users do not know what paid does (Grammarly)
- Apps where one complete item stands for the rest, like an intro class (Zumba)
Evidence & sources 4 entries
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Good to knowFit and evidence notes
- Fit to consider
- Paid features with a real cost per use (AI generation, human review) make every free sample cost money (Cheng)
- About the evidence
- Only Grammarly gives a number, from a spoken account without a baseline or test design.
Copy includes 2 more limitations, 3 failure modes, the full evidence, and adaptation guidance.
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