That doesn't answer the dark pattern concern at all and you're just dodging the issue. When people hear trial they think "free time to make my decision" not "10 days for $300" which is what this will be for anyone who forgets to cancel (hint: any EE on a deadline but I guess you know that). This is just predatory.
Isn't that standard practice? For example, after the Netflix free 1-month trial, you immediately get charged for the upcoming month. So isn't it up to the customer to make sure he/she doesn't break the terms of the trial i.e. try it for "too long"?
being standard practice doesn't make it any less of a dark pattern. it's just that tons of companies have decided it's fine to cheat users for an extra revenue stream
Exactly how is it cheating? As long as the service clearly states upfront that your card will be charged at the end of your trial, it's the user's decision whether or not to proceed.
I'd argue that it would add some amount of inconvenience to the user, and lower conversion rates as a result, if the user has to pay to continue using the service.
put it this way - if you asked users up-front "when your trial expires, should we convert you to a paying customer and automatically start billing you?", what fraction of them would say "yes"? i'd guess it's pretty low, and most companies know it. the fact that they're deliberately taking advantage of people's tendency to forget to cancel counts as cheating in my book.
Thanks for the feedback. It might make sense to remove the free trial then because the main feature in it is just parts requests which people can now test with this new InstaPart feature.
At $DAYJOB we run a SaaS with a free trial, and immediately start billing for the following month after the trial expires.
However, we don't ask for credit card details until the first payment, so, there's no risk that a user would be charged accidentally. It also reduces onboarding friction as a credit card isn't required for signup. If a user doesn't want to continue after the trial, we advise them to disregard the invoice.
I would suggest you to continue with this.
There is another reason that is done - evaluation is done by engineers and purchase decisions needs finance. What you want to do is move the process upfront where the approvals are in place by the time the trial ends.
This is why this is pretty standard practice - keep sending reminders every week and also the day before you are going to charge.
I (an engineer) have gotten subscriptions for things that would never have gone through if I had to go through and file a report on why this should be bought.
Also, not making a credit card mandatory for sign up will get you non-serious customers. You will need to have infrastructure costs to support a large number of these.
If you have other killer features in the trial then just provide discounts for parts (say $19 during the trial) and remove the dark pattern instead of removing trials all together. I actually do need this service now and $29 per part is a drop in the bucket, especially since a lot of parts I need have nonstandard footprints. I can check and correct a footprint against a datasheet much faster than I can draw it so there's little risk to my deadline but the trial dark pattern is very off putting even if $300 is nothing compared to revenue. I'd love a service like this but it won't save me more than 2-4 days of work during a 2-3 month long contract so soft concerns like this can easily keep me from paying for a product.
From [1]: "A Dark Pattern is a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills."
Yes there is trickry. A "Free Trial" does not mean 10 days for $300 which is what it essentially is whenever someone forgets to cancel. This is the same technique slimy online businesses (i.e. credit reporting agencies) use all the time along with making it hard to cancel. They even made it quarterly so that they can make three months off of you instead of one.
If you think I'm being obnoxious you should perhaps reflect on your own behavior. Others in this thread clearly agree that this is a dark pattern.
I think they are wrong just like I think you are. That's no argument.
You're defaming one of the most beautiful services that has ever come out of YC. A service that will help the life of so many hardware hackers and professionals. The pricing model for InstaPart is the most noble I've ever seen and you're complaining about them being predators and dark pattern practioneers?
