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Sahil Khan

Should you offer free access when launching a paid product on Product Hunt?

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I'm seeing more products launch on Product Hunt that require payment to actually use any features. No free trial, no freemium tier, just a download that leads straight to a paywall.

Part of me thinks this makes sense. If your product has real value, why give it away? People on Product Hunt understand they're looking at premium tools. Plus offering free access can attract users who will never pay anyway.

But I also see the argument for temporary free access during launch. Product Hunt users want to actually try what they're upvoting. How can they give meaningful feedback or become advocates if they hit a paywall immediately?

Some makers offer special promo codes just for the PH community.

Then there's the middle ground - a limited free trial that gives people enough time to evaluate during the launch buzz, but converts them to paid after.

I've seen successful launches using all three approaches, but I'm curious what actually works better for building genuine momentum versus just getting empty upvotes.

What's your experience launching paid products on PH? Do you think the community expects some level of free access, or are people fine paying if the value is clear? And does it affect your chances of getting featured?

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Amir
It might sound weird to ask this. I have never published in Product Hunt. However, we are thinking about a LTD offer for the first weeks along with free trials of course 😅 so users can experience the value. Do you think that might be a good idea?
C J
Having worked with many SaaS ventures with my own share of success and failures, here is my take: If you are at an Idea stage, and you want to validate Idea, you must always present your idea along with pricing to learn if your prospect customers are willing to pay for idea and not just give your false promises. The goal is to validates your business model along with idea. If you are at a launch stage, I would highly recommend you to not force customers to pay upfront and let them use the product and allow them to derive value. If you are bootstrapped, your resources are limited, Hence you need to find right threshold to make them upgrade to paid plan. Delivering too much value too early can also be fatal.
Sam @CRANQ

I feel like this has to be done tbh - People need to get to the point in the 'free-section' where they're able to see value - Maybe it's just me but that's what we've done with out product & we're at 320+ users atm & it's going well!

Pulin Yu

When launching a paid product on Product Hunt, offering a limited free trial can be a good strategy to allow users to experience the value before committing. Users are more likely to pay if they can see the product’s value clearly. Also I think that they would be more inclined to pay after being cultivated a habit of using this free product (for now).

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