
Ask HN: Required credit cards during registration? - mrburton
Question: Should you ask for a credit card during sign-up and give the user a 7 day trial before charging the card?
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bigiain
Best anecdotal evidence/advice I've heard is that it'll significantly reduce
your volume of signups, but also significantly increase your rate of
conversions from sign-ups to paying customers.

Whether the increased conversion rate overcomes the reduction in signup
volumes is the big question. I suspect it's different for everybody, and the
only way to find out is to test.

One thing that'll affect your decision, is what the cost to you of
"freeloading" no-credit-card signups is, and whether it's worth forgoing them
to concentrate on the more-likely-to-convert signups who are prepared to put
their CC number down. If you're offering a SaaS or Pass thing where the
incremental cost for each new signup is extremely c heap (like cents or less),
then it's much easier to justify a totally free non credit card trial than if
whatever you're selling has incremental costs in the dollars or tens of
dollars range.

(And, the flip side to that, if you want to build an Uber style "grab all the
market while supported by ever increasing VC round funding and profit after
you've collected all the underwear" business, then don't ask for CC numbers up
front. Or even at all... And hope you can flip $700mil of shares before your
Uber-but-for-office-space business crashes down around everybody...)

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greenyoda
I'd never sign up for a "free trial" that required a credit card. My
experience suggests that it will be a hassle to cancel the service if I find
out that I'm not interested after 7 days.

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clintonb
Maybe. What are you selling?

