After counting more than 120,000 unique visitors and almost 1,000,000 page views on his Letter from Santa site, developer Tyler Nichols has abandoned the freemium business model behind his site.
His freemium model (also used by many authors and publishers) allowed family members to write a letter from Santa, offering both a free version and a higher resolution paid version of the printable letter. Over the holidays, more than 50,000 users wrote letters for the kids in their lives. However, Nichols encountered some unexpected problems.
Check it out: “Free customers are higher maintenance than paying customers. I think it’s because they aren’t paying, they show little or no attention to directions … What really made me change my mind about offering freemium was when I sent a thank you email a couple of days ago to everyone who used the site this Christmas. Many free customers flagged the email as spam! So let me get this straight, you just used my service to make something for your kid for free and then you nail me with a spam complaint?”