Why miniHabits ships a real free tier

The free tier gives you ten habits, eight themes, all five tracking modes, widgets, heatmaps and CSV export, with no time limit. Several people have told me that is too generous, and that a seven day trial would convert better. They might be right about the conversion rate in the first month. I do not think they are right about the second year.

The argument is about who pays and when. A habit tracker is judged over months, not minutes. Nobody can tell in seven days whether an app will still be the one they open in March, because the thing being tested is not the interface, it is whether they keep using it at all. A trial that expires before that question is answered forces a purchase decision on incomplete information, and the refund rate shows it.

The free tier also does something a trial cannot: it makes recommending the app cheap. Ten habits is enough for most people permanently, which means a free user is not a failed conversion, they are the distribution. In a category with no ad budget that matters more than an extra few percent of first-month purchases.

This post has the actual numbers, what the cap is set at and why ten, what sits behind the paywall and the rule I used to decide, and the two things I got wrong in the first version of the split.

Outline

Status: outline. The introduction above is finished copy. Everything below is the section plan for the full draft, targeted at about 1 400 words.

1. What free includes. The full list, and the deliberate absence of a timer.
2. Trials against free tiers. What each one tests, and why the timescale matters here.
3. Why ten habits. The distribution of habit counts in the data, and where the cap landed.
4. The paywall rule. One sentence that decided every feature placement.
5. The numbers. Conversion, refunds and word of mouth, as far as I can measure them.
6. Two things I got wrong. Features that should never have been paid, and one that should not have been free.