Ask HN: How to control users abusing the free credits and demo
It's the 3rd month of https://extracttable.com released to the internet. While it attracted a couple of bulk purchases and 30+ small packs, but I'm seeing the rise in visitors abusing the service it in 2 ways
no signup needed to try the demo - visitors are trying on more than 12+ files per session
no credit card details requested for free API credits - multiple email accounts are being used
Welcome to my world. We're in year 5 and no amount of checking for multiple signups by IP, block/spam/burner email lists, captchas, questionnaires, email confirmation, oauth logins (google, facebook) helps. Multiple signups for free stuff come from students, whole universities (we found our service listed in several curriculum with "just sign up for free") and Fortune 500 companies. Record was a user with 100 accounts. Written warnings works somewhat but also get ignored regularly. After IP blocks our last defense is returning fake data.
While frustrating we see it was daily business to block some users. Overall it costs us time but rarely lost revenue. Those users willing to register 10 accounts don't convert to paid accounts much.
Free trials requiring credit card will help, it's more work to setup and will lower the number of signups.
> Those users willing to register 10 accounts don't convert to paid accounts much
Well, there are instances in our case who are paid users now.
We are operating the service under 50% margin after op cost - our closest competitor in price, charges 2-5x to ours.
I'm afraid (at least at this point of time) to put the CC requirement upfront. I may eventually go for it, if we bleed more.
Thanks for sharing your experience
So far it doesn’t seem like they’re dedicated attackers trying to abuse the service but more like legitimate users just using the free service without concerns for paying because you don’t prevent them from using it freely.
So restrict the free tier to an amount that allows them to try it while limiting intensive usage, and then ask for a prepaid entry/starter plan for more (don’t just rely on active credit cards as they can be generated infinitely - you need to actually take money from them).
Guess what, the data usage policy has made the difference for us.
Data from Purchased Credits neither be used nor shared Data from free/promotional/demo will be used internally ;)Considering the IP limit from the demo. I think the prepaid plan for under 5$ sounds like a good option. Thanks for the trigger.
Add something that will show people how the system works. A short demo or video that just shows the input and the results. That will cut down on the number of users using the service just for curiosity.
Also, keep in mind that only a small percentage of the people that use the system will signup to pay so don't be surprise of the number of people trying the system for free versus signups.
The offering is API as a service, unsure if Video amuses me as a developer.