[baddox]

I don’t understand. The only reason it would be beneficial to ask for the credit card now instead of later is if you’re hoping the customer simply forgets to cancel. It signals to me as a customer that you’re not confident that your free trial will convince me to pay.

[dangrossman]

Suffice it to say, this has been heavily tested by thousands of businesses, and there's hard data behind many of those that land on requiring a card on file up front that has nothing to do with hoping people forget to cancel. It's about activation rates. If your service requires the user do some initial setup work to get value from it, like integrate your whatever into their website, they're MUCH more likely to follow through on that work after having given you a credit card to sign up (and perhaps had to discuss with their boss or IT dept or whoever to approve using the company card).

[hombre_fatal]

I have yet to use a service with this pattern that requires you to click an "Alright, start charging me $15/mo" button once their free trial expires. That would obviously be the most user-friendly thing to do.

So, without that step, you can't say "has nothing to do with hoping people forget to cancel."

[fasteddie]

As someone who as implemented similar CC blockers before: people who forget to cancel leave after one month, leave a bad reviews which affect future growth, and make churn numbers bad. I do not want many of those people, and will both send multiple reminders that they will be charged and refund them no questions asked.

But for any business that requires some amount of human support for users, it can be much easier to convert 15 out of 100 signups than out of 1000.

[mgreenleaf]

Sometimes it is used as a verification of "uniqueness", since someone could sign up for multiple free trials using different emails. Not a problem for most products, but can be a pain.

[mister_hn]

In that case, something like electronic ID or webauthn might solve the problem?

[jjeaff]

We ask for the cc now, but then still get a final confirmation before charging. The idea being that we won't charge you for forgetting, but you are also showing some interest by being willing to put the card in, and when it comes time to decide to pay, it's only a button press away and they don't even have to dig out their cc.

[travisjungroth]

The ease of conversion is definitely a component. And that has a few parts. Maybe you hope that people forget they don’t want it (like you said). There’s also hoping they don’t forget they do want it. People are pretty lazy and forgetful.

There are other components. Credit card entry acts like a captcha, but it’s actually a useful part of the process (unlike clicking street signs).

And the marginal cost of a free trial is low, but it’s not zero. If I can have less free trial customers but end up with similar paying customers, that’s a win.

There’s not only one reason.