Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Freemium SaaS free-to-paid conversion must exceed 5% to survive

Yuriy Timen · How to grow a subscription business | Yuriy Timen (Grammarly, Canva, Airtable) · Sep 1, 2022 · at 50:14

Growth advisor Yuriy Timen outlines benchmark free-to-paid conversion metrics required for a freemium business model to sustain long-term growth.

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“I think anything under five percent It's not gonna work long-term, regardless of how big your top of funnel is. Like you may get the soft one, but like for you to remain an independent company, continuously growing you know, pre-IPO, like I don't think it's gonna happen. It's gotta be north of five percent, ideally like north of seven percent.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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Assertion Not checkable as stated
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