The “freemium” business model is very popular among tech companies today. A freemium model is one where a company offers most features of a service for free, but also offers additional features for a price, often in the form of paid premium accounts. Some services offer so many features as part of a free account, that I wonder what the incentive is for users to get a paid account. I suspect the idea is one of pure numbers – if the free version is so useful that it attracts a gazllion users, a company only needs a very small percentage of those users to actually purchase the premium version.
Off the top of my head, the services that I pay for are Evernote, Toodledo, Lastpass, and Xmarks. What freemium services or apps have you found to be so useful, that you shelled out money for a paid version? Or maybe you didn’t even need the premium version, but wanted to support the developers? Let us know in the comments, below. If we get enough of a response identifying popular freemium services, we’ll run a poll in the future to see which paid services are the most popular.
jon says:
I was paying for Toodledo, but let that lapse last month as I can get by just fine in Google Tasks. I just renewed my Lastpass account – could not live without it on my android phone.
January 11, 2011 — 9:49 pm
Evan Kline says:
I haven’t looked at Google Tasks in a while. I remember it being a bit more simple than Toodledo, but that may have changed. And agreed – Lastpass is essential.
January 12, 2011 — 3:54 pm
Marianne says:
Does Flickr count?
January 11, 2011 — 11:15 pm
Evan Kline says:
It sure does, Marianne. I’ve been thinking about looking at something like Flickr or Picasa to host the photos on my personal site. I keep bouncing from one self-hosted solution to another, and have started to think it might be easier in someone else’s hands.
January 12, 2011 — 3:57 pm
Daryl says:
Toodledo – great product so I subscribe to support the product development although I do use some of the premium features as well but could live without most of those I use if I had to!
Evernote – was undecided whether I would renew that but the new Windows desktop version came out so I am happier. I tend to shoot alot of PDF’s across so it is pretty valuable in that respect.
Flickr – I happen to get a Pro account with my BT Broadband subscription but not sure if I would pay for that. I intended to use it much more than I ended up doing so, so still undecided…
Mozy – This one I would definitely keep at the cost of losing all the others if I had to choose, even though it’s among the most expensive (along with Evernote Premium). Although I managed to keep the price down by taking the annual subscription via the US site at $54.45 (roughly £34.90 at the current conversion) rather than the UK site at £54.89 – a saving of just about £20!
January 12, 2011 — 6:33 am
Daryl says:
Those where I use the free version:
Lastpass – but am considering upgrading for the same reason as I have for Toodledo, and the cost is not all that big.
Tripit – I occasionally use the free version and don’t have any plans to upgrade – don’t use it enough to justify the cost (no idea what the cost is though!)
January 12, 2011 — 6:36 am
Evan Kline says:
You and I have some similar uses, Daryl. I don’t use Flickr, but I do use Carbonite instead of Mozy. I also use Lastpass (premium), and the free version of Tripit. Tripit is pretty slick, but just like you I don’t use it enough to justify paying for the Pro version.
January 12, 2011 — 4:00 pm
Daryl says:
Forget that X-Marks now has a paid version so is “freemium” – I use the free version.
Also used to use Spotify (he-he! one thing we Brits CAN access that you US guys/gals cannot!) but mostly at work and had to drop it.
P.S. Having access to Spotify isn’t any compensation for not being able to access Google Voice :(
January 20, 2011 — 10:01 am
Evan Kline says:
Ah, Spotify. I’ve heard lots about it, but have never seen it. :(
January 20, 2011 — 10:10 am
kyith says:
have not paid yet but i will consider LastPass Evernote and Toodledo
January 12, 2011 — 6:44 pm
Anthony Russo says:
Being somewhat frugal (wife would say cheap), there is not much that I pay for. The only service I can think of is Grooveshark as when I got my DroidX I wanted the mobile streaming option.
I use many other services free version and with a bit of tinkering, seem to get by with that.
Anthony
January 12, 2011 — 8:06 pm
Bobby Travis says:
I’m with you there, Anthony — in most cases I get by just fine with the free versions or I find a free alternative. I did cave on LastPass, though, as I wanted the mobile app (which is annoying, but useful). I also paid for both Action Method Online and ReQall, but decided to drop both services.
January 12, 2011 — 10:19 pm
Krish says:
Feedburner i bought a pro license, even the free version do the needful things :)
January 13, 2011 — 1:22 am
Evan Kline says:
I didn’t even know that there was a pro version of Feedburner. I did a Google search, and all I found were links saying that the Pro version is now free?
January 13, 2011 — 12:01 pm
Terry says:
LastPass
January 13, 2011 — 8:12 pm
Martin says:
Toodledo – wanted to support the developers and liked sub-tasks.
LastPass – wanted to support the developers and to get the Android app.
I will probably sign up to Xmarks too for the same reasons.
All these services are $12 a year which I think is a good price point and tipped me into signing up. Some thing would need to be very good/useful to make me pay $5 a month for, such as online backup…
Still deciding which backup service to go with. I’ve been reading your articles here with interest, especially Daryl’s comment above about signing up to the mozy US subscription rate rather than the expensive UK one. I do like the fact that Carbonite now has an Android app though.
January 14, 2011 — 8:30 am
Kosmo @ The Soap Boxers says:
Hello, old chap.
Perhaps the British version comes with a spot o’ butler service ’round tea time. Having someone come out with tea and crumpets would be worth a few quid, mate.
Cheerio!
(Yeah, I find it a bit odd to have that big of a disparity in pricing, unless there’s some sort of tariff coming into play?)
January 14, 2011 — 4:05 pm
Martin says:
I do think it’s a bit extortionate just because we drive on the other side of the road!
January 17, 2011 — 12:21 pm
Rob says:
Toodledo, Lastpass, XMarks
January 15, 2011 — 9:46 am
Niel says:
I use Toodledo, Lastpass, Evernote, flickr, and Dropbox. I’m surprised that I’m the first one to mention Dropbox.
January 18, 2011 — 11:44 pm
Evan Kline says:
I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned Dropbox, too. I use the free version. I’ve gotten my free account up to 4GB, which is big enough, at least for now.
January 19, 2011 — 5:18 pm
Niel says:
Nice job getting to 4GB for free. I only have 2GB. I keep considering paying for the 50GB plan, but I just feel it’s a bit too expensive ($10/month). If it were half that, then it would be no-brainer.
January 20, 2011 — 11:23 am
Evan Kline says:
If you want another 1GB, do a search for Dropquest 2011. It’s on online scavenger hunt of sorts, with a 1GB reward. There are walkthroughs online.
January 20, 2011 — 1:23 pm
Niel says:
@Evan Thanks for the tip on Dropbox. I’m up to 3GB.
January 20, 2011 — 11:00 pm
Lorane says:
I pay for Mozy, AllRecipes, Webshots (I love to change wallpaper), will probably pay for Lastpass soon.
January 24, 2011 — 7:16 pm
Evan Kline says:
I hadn’t heard of AllRecipes, Lorane. My wife is really into cooking, so I’ll have to share that one with her.
January 25, 2011 — 3:38 pm
Daryl says:
You may therefore be interested in a new service called Yumm. Not tried it myself but here’s the Techcrunch post about it from earlier this week which sounds pretty positive: http://tcrn.ch/eX97Of
January 26, 2011 — 4:45 am
Evan Kline says:
Thanks, Daryl! I just told my wife about Yumm.
January 31, 2011 — 6:40 pm
Rich says:
Dropbox, flickr.
I keep all my work on Dropbox. Never having to carry a USB drive around or worry about backups is fantastic. Plus the piece of mind that comes with knowing that if my desktop and laptop blow up, I can get all my files back in the time it takes to install the dropbox client on a new computer and sync it up. Worth every penny.
I use flickr as my backup for all the family’s pics. Great for sharing with the relatives as well. Again, knowing that all the pics are safe is worth the small annual fee.
January 26, 2011 — 10:00 am
Evan Kline says:
Dropbox is essential for me, too Rich. Right now, the stuff I sync is within my 4GB of free storage, but I’d have to consider a premium account if I got close to that.
January 31, 2011 — 6:42 pm
Spencer Stern says:
Interestingly I haven’t found a comprehensive list of Freemium services on the web.
November 3, 2012 — 4:07 pm