We've been going back and forth on this while designing a trial for an API product, and I keep flip-flopping — curious how others have settled it.
Option A: the full trial credit up front. Simple to explain, feels generous, and a serious evaluator can run a real workload on day one. Downside: it's a magnet for farming — scripted signups drain it in minutes — and a genuine user can burn it accidentally in one bad retry loop and conclude the product is expensive.
Option B: the same total, released as a small daily allowance. Farming gets slow and boring, real users get a reason to come back several days in a row, and support sees problems while there's still trial left to fix them. Downside: a serious evaluator hits the ceiling mid-benchmark on day one and walks away annoyed.
The middle paths I've seen: a daily allowance that can burst once the account verifies more identity; an allowance that grows after the first successful integration; and separate lanes entirely — a restricted trial model instead of the full catalog.
What I actually want to know:
- If you've run a trial like this: which shape survived contact with real users, and what did the abuse look like?
- If you've used API trials as a developer: which shape made you take a product seriously, and which made you close the tab?
Asking because we're about to lock ours in, and I'd rather steal the right answer than learn it the expensive way.
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