It seems like more companies are moving from the freemium model to the free trial model. We recently switched over for http://www.theweddinglens.com/ and have been pleased with the increased number of conversions.
Interesting. Why did you make the switch? I'd love to hear details about that.
My thinking is that if more people are using the service, that also doubles as an advertisement if the users tell some of their friends, recommend to coworkers etc.
Just because someone signs up for a free service doesn't mean they're going to use and spread it. When you get them committed through paying, then there's an even higher usage rate as they figure out the best way to maximize it.
Under the original free plans we saw a lot of people just signing up for free to play around with it, only to end up paying a couple weeks later. By making it an actual free trial system, we're able to put a lot more pressure and messaging throughout the upgrade process.
