If you’re bootstrapping your SaaS, you should drop your free tier.

By doing so, I was able to double the revenue growth rate of my Slack app Smooz, while reducing the amount of work required to maintain my app and support my customers.

“Drop your free tier” should be for bootstrapped SaaS apps what “Charge more” is to consultants: a reflex, a sanity check, a default choice.

There may be exceptions, but only for well thought-out reasons. Instead, focus on attracting paying customers. This article is based on hard-learned lessons, from the mistakes I made while launching and growing Smooz. Recently, several entrepreneurs asked my opinion about their pricing structure, and were about to fall into the exact same traps that I fell into.

Why we f...