Free tier: acquisition channel or demo for early users

You are deciding whether to ship a free tier before you have distribution. Strapi Cloud stopped accepting new Free plan users on July 1, 2026, and gave existing free projects until September 1, 2026 to upgrade to paid or delete the project. The rule is that a free tier should earn users or earn upgrades, not become a place where signups collect. If it has no commitment, no usage signal, and no upsell path, price it, gate it, or kill it before it becomes a cost center. That test matters more than growth tactics that assume you already have traffic.

Free is either a door or a dead end

A free tier can be an acquisition channel: enough value to let a stranger start, with a clear reason to keep using it and a path to pay. Or it can be a demo: a short, bounded experience that shows the product working, then asks for a decision. When you are doing the unscalable work, every signup should be a conversation. You need to know who used it, what they built, and where they got stuck.

Run the free-tier channel test before you ship:

• Commitment: Does the free tier require a card, a domain, a team invite, or a scheduled check-in?
• Usage signal: Can you see whether someone created, edited, sent, or invited others?
• Upsell path: Is there a clear paid action after a useful moment?

Yes to all three means the tier can be an acquisition channel. Usage and upsell without commitment can still work as a demo. No across the board means the tier is mostly a place for people to sign up and disappear.

The strongest objection is that free builds trust

Founders often keep a free tier because it lowers the ask. A stranger can create an account, poke around, and feel less exposed than if a card were required. That instinct is real. But a free tier with no commitment can become a place where people park an idea and never return. If the product is not being used, the free tier is building inventory of inactive accounts, not trust.

Most Strapi Cloud free projects were unused beyond creation, and many had no content or API traffic. Strapi Cloud attributed slow initial loads on free projects to sleeping containers. The Strapi Cloud Free plan required no upfront payment or credit card and was framed as a non-trial option. It included monthly limits of 2,500 API requests, 10 GB storage, 10 GB bandwidth, 500 database entries, and 100 emails. The Strapi Cloud Starter plan was priced from $29 per month when billed annually.

The limits were not the problem; the free tier had no reason to become a paid relationship. A stranger could create a project, hit a cap, and leave without feeling the product's core value. A demo needs a moment of completion. A channel needs a reason to return.

Price the demo, gate the channel, or remove the tier

If the free tier is an acquisition channel, make it cost something in attention. Require a card, a domain, a team invite, or a scheduled check-in so the tier separates people who will use the product from people who will only collect an account.

When the free tier is a demo, make the demo end. Give a bounded window, a limited project, or a clear upgrade prompt after a useful moment. The demo should show enough value that the user can imagine the paid version doing real work. Then the upgrade is a decision, not a surprise.

If the free tier is neither, remove it. Put that time into manual outreach, onboarding calls, and fixing the part of the product that made early users hesitate. Then talk to the people who actually use the product.