Free, trial or guarantee: what each costs

A free first step is a cost the seller pays so the buyer doesn't have to. The cost doesn't vanish; it moves, usually into time or into a cost per use.

Dana's practice shows the time version. From September to November she gave everyone a free first lesson: 60 minutes plus 20 of preparation, in the same evenings she uses for paid work. Eight people took one, five became regular learners, three didn't continue. To her it felt like nothing, because no money changed hands.

Klasna's planned Club trial shows the cost-per-use version: the AI partner bills every minute a trialist practises. The speaking clubs, on the other hand, really cost nothing extra while they have free seats.

So the first rule for any free offer, trial or guarantee: count what it costs the way you'd count money, then divide by the paying customers it brings, not by the people who tried it.

To judge a free offer, divide everything it cost by the customers who stayed, not by everyone who tried. For a one-person practice the currency is hours.

Dana's free first lessons, September to November: eight lessons of 80 minutes each (60 for the lesson, 20 for preparation) = 640 minutes = 10.67 hours. Five people became regular learners, so each new learner cost 2.13 hours of her evenings.

The three who didn't continue still took a full lesson each. Two discovered her evenings didn't fit their week and one wanted a group, things that had nothing to do with her teaching and could have come out in a short talk.

The same sum works for any acquisition method: total time (or money) spent ÷ customers gained. Dividing by the people who tried, 10.67 ÷ 8 = 1.33 hours, would make the offer look cheaper than it was, because the hours spent on people who leave are part of the price of the ones who stay.

Hours become comparable with money once you price them at what they could otherwise earn. That's the opportunity cost: the income you give up by using the time this way.

Dana's free lessons happen in the same evenings as her Klasna lessons, and an hour of Klasna lessons pays her 470 after tax. Valued at that rate, the free lessons cost 10.67 ÷ 5 × 470 = 1,002.67 UAH per new regular learner, almost two paid lessons at 600.

That changes how the offer looks. «Free» felt like nothing; priced, it's a real acquisition cost, paid in time she could have spent teaching. It may still be worth it: a regular learner brings many paid lessons. But now it can be compared with cheaper ways of letting people try.

Use a rate the hours could really earn. If the evenings were empty anyway, the cost is lower; once her calendar fills up, every free hour displaces a paid one.

Much of what a free full lesson reveals can be found out much more cheaply. Of the three people who took Dana's free lesson and didn't continue, two found her evenings didn't fit their week and one wanted a group. A short conversation about goals, schedule and format would have caught all three.

A free 20-minute intro call does that job. It costs 20 minutes instead of 80, with no preparation. If eight calls still bring five learners: 8 × 20 = 160 minutes = 2.67 hours, about 0.53 hours per new learner, or 250.67 UAH at her Klasna rate of 470 an hour, a quarter of what the free lessons cost.

That «if» is an assumption, not a fact. A call shows less of Dana's teaching than a full lesson, so fewer people might take the next step. That's why she pairs the call with a way to try a real lesson without risk, and checks her numbers after a few months.

A new buyer's main fear is paying a stranger for something that may not suit them. There are three ways to answer it, and each puts the risk somewhere else:

• Free full first lesson: no risk for the buyer, the whole cost for the seller, including people who never planned to stay.
• Paid first lesson, no refunds: protects the seller's time but leaves all the risk with the buyer, so many nervous people never start.
• Paid first lesson with a money-back guarantee: the buyer pays, but gets the money back if they don't want to continue. The seller pays only the refunds, and only to people who tried a real lesson.

Dana's plan from December combines the cheap fit check with the guarantee: a free 20-minute call, then a paid first lesson of 600, refunded on request within two days.

A guarantee works only if it's honoured as easily as it's advertised: one message, the refund within days, no questions to justify. A guarantee with hidden conditions is worse than none.

A free trial of a subscription costs whatever trialists use that has a cost per use, divided by the trialists who become paying members.

Nazar wants a 14-day free trial of the Club. The speaking clubs cost nothing extra while they have free seats, so count only the AI partner. His assumptions: about 70 minutes of practice per trialist, and one in five becomes a member.

• AI per trialist: 70 × 0.80 = 56 UAH.
• Trialists per member: 1 ÷ 0.20 = 5.
• AI cost per paying member: 56 × 5 = 280 UAH.

Compare that with what a member brings. A member leaves 343.75 a month on average and, by Hanna's estimate from the cancellations so far, stays about 7 months: 2,406.25. On these numbers the trial pays for itself many times over, if it brings members who wouldn't have joined anyway.

Both inputs are guesses until the trial runs. If only one in ten converted, the cost per member would double to 560.

A free trial that turns into a paid plan is fair only if nobody is surprised by the first charge. Honest terms:

• Before sign-up: say that the trial becomes a paid plan, with the date and the amount of the first charge.
• A reminder a few days before charging.
• Cancelling as easily as signing up, in the same place. That's Klasna's own standard. As of October 2026 some EU countries already require it, and an EU-wide rule has been proposed but isn't settled.

For Klasna's EU families the law already requires, as of October 2026, the total price per billing period before they sign.

Two things never belong in a trial: a harder way out (cancelling only by phone during working hours) and a pre-ticked box that adds a paid extra. Both are dark patterns, and in the EU a pre-ticked paid extra doesn't count as consent.

Honest terms cost little: the people a trap would keep are the ones who would complain, ask for refunds and warn others.

Sign-ups are the easiest number to celebrate and the least useful. Every trialist costs AI minutes; only the ones who become paying members pay for them. And of those, some would have joined without a trial. For them the trial is pure cost.

So the measure is added paying customers: members who joined because of the trial, compared with what the trial cost. Nazar's inputs, 70 minutes per trialist and one in five converting, are guesses until the trial runs. Hanna's way to check: run it for a limited group of new learners and compare their joining rate with learners who weren't offered a trial.

Dana uses the same lens on a smaller scale: five regulars from eight free lessons, and from December she checks whether calls and the guarantee do as well.

How it fits together: «free» moves cost to the seller, so count it in hours or minutes per paying customer and pick the cheapest honest way to try. Next: the module's case, every Club member's November usage and a Club redesign.