Free Trials

…they would had made $2000 to $4000 a week
>> and even though that system has gone
>> to make consistent money in a steady fashion,
>> they all dropped at the end of the trial period
>> and never returned.

Perhaps they returned with other identity.

Collective2 should ask a credit card number, to verify a trial user and test, if the same card wants to consume a trial period again.

^^^^ Silly Ross…Really difficult to track that I would assume…plus why would the owner care? He’s still collecting the system manager fees.

On the System Finder page, it would be more informative to show the number of all time paying subscribers rather than those who briefly sign up and cancel. Currently it shows # AutoTraders (all time), where I believe ‘all time’ was added a couple of months ago? It would also be nice to now the number of current paying subscribers.

I’ve seen systems where the ‘all time’ number has shrunk, so I’m not sure how that works.

I believe the reason for having inflated “all time” figures is to give developers the impression that they with be making a good living from subscriptions. I agree that “active paying” would be a better indicator.
I have to believe that many people have ditched the top rated futures system considering the last 6 months performance.

Interesting discussion. The root of this issue is not really free trial vs no free trials; it is that even great systems have trouble getting paid subscribers at C2.

Kevin’s systems are great. They have great track records, for over a year now, and there should be no shortage of subscribers, with or without free trials. [Kevin, the trading may be the same work with 2 or 200 subscribers, but when you have many subscribers, the work load will be higher, answering emails, etc.] I don’t see why Kevin would need free trials: he has track records that all can see. This is C2’s best feature.

There are other great systems here that also have very few followers. If you look at the top systems at C2, and compare them to Mutual Funds, the C2 systems would be at the top of the list; the same is true for Hedge Funds. Hedge Funds don’t need to offer free trials before the heavy fees start, do they? No, because investors want performance, and they are willing to pay to get it.

This is why I proposed that the list of Statistics include YTD, yearly [21013, 2012, 2011, etc], and 1,2,3,5 year annualized return info, so that people that may be shopping C2 and Hedge Funds or Mutual Funds can see just where C2 systems would line up with other investment alternatives.

More importantly though, C2 needs to get more traffic to the site. If people knew there were systems that were beating most Hedge Funds, and they didn’t have to pay ‘2 and 20’ to get access, they would sign up.

You definitely hit at the root of the problem. We need to show HNW people how good these systems can perform. People with 5000 to try aren’t going to be able to tolerate any normal system that goes through a draw down.
Maybe the focus of advertising and promotion should be the performance of the systems to the public and money managers instead of a place for developers to ply their wares.

I give in…free 7 day trial for RBgold Supra.

Dave

Thanks for the kind words. The free trial strategy has worked for me, and I’ll be sticking with it for the time being. I doubt that eliminating the free trials will make a system developer more money, but that is a personal decision each developer needs to make.

I still would like to see the total number of CURRENT paying subscribers at full price on each system.

Dave

I am not trying to talk anyone into, or out of, free trials.

My point is, that with enough traffic, on a site that records full trade histories in real-time, that systems with good records will get subscribers. If people serious about making money see a system making money, they won’t need a free trial to get interested.


Agree. But it does take some time to get scaling set up properly. I wish a 2 or 3 day trial was available. That is enough to get a feel for the system.

Dave

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" Like I said before, it is no more work for me if there are 2 subscribers or 200."

There’s a big difference between having 2 and 200 subscribers , the liquidity issue cant be dismissed - for futures and stocks systems -.

Instead of having 2 subs competing for liquidity , 200 subscriber of yours will be doing so which will cause slippage for them and free subscribers will have an adverse effect on your paid customers .

Does not change my work effort. And what a nice problem to have.

Why not changing the charging model to a commission based fee, like charging a half pip per trade, this will attract more subscribers as they will consider the signals as free signals and there will be no commitment or trial what so ever.

good idea, a similar concept was trialled for subs outside of usa last year

My suggestion would be for C2 to allow system developers to offer a discounted 3 month trial of 50% off the regular monthly price instead of a free trial.



That way, the system developers aren’t working for free, the subscriber is only paying half price for 3 months, and C2 collects a partial subscription rate immediately.



As has been pointed out on this thread, all potential subscribers can easily view the closed trades of any system that they are considering subscribing to, so there are no surprises.



[LINKSYSTEM_81055844]

Well, what fun. I’ll revive an 18 month old topic. It was very interesting reading the comments here. What else would I do on a Saturday night, the market’s closed!

So yeah, the subs are sometimes using trial for legit purposes then moving on. A (largish) number just recycle using different email addresses, or in one case the same. One guy canceled, then a couple of weeks later signed up again for 15 minutes, just to see where the portfolio was, the canceled again. My system is very slow moving I suspect, compared to most. Unless you are day trading, or making very, very short term trades, it’s too easy for people to game the system and just tag along for free as long as they want.

My current plan to combat this is to keep going until I have a bunch of these folks, let’s say 60 (I might have 20 now) then turn off free trials, raise the price to all but current paying subs, maybe even discount the real paying subs who are also being taken advantage of by these people, and tell people to look at the record.

Given that I have no way to know for sure how many people are cycling thru free trials over and over, what’s the group’s thoughts on this idea? I’m curious, any thoughts?

Rob

I agree, it’s Saturday night without much going on but here’s a thought from a sub - stop complaining and eliminate the free trials!

Corey,
to the point, I like it.
Rob

1 Like

Well i am not a fan of the free trial and even less so after reading all of this. But, in creating my DAILY CASH II here, C2 implied that they would be less accommodating in free promotional help if i didn’t offer at least a 7 day trial and there was no option for me to setup less than that. If i had a choice i would never offer a free trial for more than 3 days.
And, although the DAILY CASH II system is only in it second month, i feel it is doing well enough to be promoted on the ‘Strategies Making New Highs’ list on the dashboard. But, i never see it there and for this reason i am starting to ask myself is it really worth it for me to continue to offer the free trial at all for the DAILY CASH II system. It frustrates me everyday not to see DAILY CASH II on the ‘Strategies Making New Highs’ list.