What "Free Plan" Actually Means — Three Kinds, One Trap
The three kinds
Perpetual free tier. A real, permanent free plan — usually capped on usage (seats, projects, exports, minutes) rather than time. You can stay on it indefinitely. This is the only kind worth calling “free” without a caveat.
Trial. Full or near-full access for a fixed window — 7, 14, 30 days. After that: pay, or lose access (sometimes lose your data too, depending on data_export — a separate trap, covered in guide #3). Trials are labeled “Free” on landing pages almost as often as perpetual tiers are, which is exactly the confusion this guide exists to clear up.
None. No free option, paid from day one — sometimes with a money-back window instead of a trial, which is a different thing (you pay first, then can ask for it back).
The trap
Two vendors can both say “Start for free” on their homepage. One means “use this forever within these limits.” The other means “use this for 14 days, then we bill your card.” The wording on the landing page almost never tells you which — the tell is buried in the pricing page’s fine print or the signup flow itself.
Before you commit real setup time (importing data, connecting integrations, inviting teammates) into a tool’s free plan, check two things:
- Is the free tier time-limited or usage-limited?
- If usage-limited, what exactly is capped — and is that cap workable for how you’d actually use it?