Turn free-plan usage into upgrades
Free-plan users who use the product every week have already made the case. Find them, and write to the one who uses it most.
The conversation
Sample accounts and numbers, for illustrationYouFind free-plan accounts where someone used a key feature at least three times in the last 14 days, show how many people at the account use the product and whether anyone there has an open opportunity, and draft an upgrade note to the most active person that names the feature they use.
Unify3 checks · product events and CRM
- Read feature events from the last 14 days and kept people with three or more uses of a key feature, matched to companies through your group mapping.
- Counted active people per account and picked the most active by feature use.
- Checked Salesforce for the plan, the owner and any open opportunity.
Eleven free-plan accounts used a key feature three or more times in the last 14 days. Four have more than one active person, and none has an open opportunity.
| Account | Plan | Most active | Uses · 14 days | People |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northwind Labs | Free | Dana Holt | Reports · 11 | 4 |
| Halden Robotics | Free | Tara Quinn | Exports · 7 | 1 |
| Lumen Freight | Free | Elena Marsh | Reports · 5 | 2 |
The plan is read from the event or CRM property you map. Accounts with an open opportunity are listed for the rep, not drafted to.
YouWhich of these are worth a note this week, and which should keep going on the free plan?
UnifyFour are worth a note. The rest are single users who use it well and have nothing to upgrade for yet.
- 1Northwind Labs4 people · 11 report runs
- 2Halden Robotics1 person · 7 export runs
- 3Lumen Freight2 people · 5 report runs
- 4Brightpath2 people · 4 export runs
- Northwind Labs
- Four people, eleven report runs by Dana in two weeks, and two of the reports are shared with people who are not users yet. That is a team on a free plan.
- Lumen Freight
- Two people, both on reports, and the second joined nine days ago. Growth inside the account, not just one enthusiast.
- Leave alone
- Halden and six others are one person each. The note would ask them to pay for something the free plan already does for them.
YouDraft the notes for the four and route them to owners.
UnifyFour drafts are with their owners. Each names the feature and the people using it, and none mentions a price.
ToDana Holt
SubjectThe reports your team is sharing
Dana, four people at Northwind have been running reports in the last two weeks, and two of those go to people outside the account. The team plan lets them see the reports directly instead of as attachments. Want me to set up a trial of it for the four of you?
- Dana HoltOwner AnaIn review
- Elena MarshOwner UnassignedRouting list
- Nils BergOwner ChrisIn review
Set up
- Four drafts routed Three to account owners in Salesforce. Lumen Freight has no owner and waits in the routing list.
- Weekly rerun Accounts that cross three uses of a key feature next week come back with the same checks.
The upgrade is offered as a trial of what the usage already needs. No limit was hit, and the note does not pretend one was.
Free-plan conversion, with and without Unify
Nothing forced a decision. The usage is the reason to write.
| Without Unify | With Unify |
|---|---|
| Free accounts sit in a product dashboard as a count, and sales never sees the names | Feature events arrive with the person and the company attached, so an active free account is a row with a name on it |
| Upgrade emails go to every free user on a schedule, whether they use the product or not | Only accounts with repeated use of a key feature in the last 14 days make the list, and the note names that feature |
| The most active user is guessed from a login count | Unify ranks the people at each account by feature use and writes to the one who uses it most |
| A free account already talking to sales gets an automated upgrade email on top | Accounts with an open opportunity are routed to the rep instead of drafted to |
Start from this prompt
Make it your own in Unify, then review the results.
Find free-plan accounts where someone used a key feature at least three times in the last 14 days, show how many people at the account use the product and whether anyone there has an open opportunity, and draft an upgrade note to the most active person that names the feature they use.
What else you can ask for
The walkthrough is one path through this workflow. These are the turns people take most often.
- Second userWhich free-plan accounts had a second person start using a key feature this week, and what did each of them use?Try in Unify
- Target companiesWhich companies on our target list have free-plan users, and what have those users done in the last 30 days?Try in Unify
- One featureWho on the free plan ran reports more than five times this month, and are any of them at the same company?Try in Unify
How it changes by who you sell to
- Software
- Free plans at software companies fill with individual engineers and analysts who never see a pricing page. Ask for accounts where more than one person uses the feature, and write to the most active person about what the team plan adds for them.
- Financial services
- A free-plan user at a bank or insurer is usually testing on their own before a procurement conversation they have not started. Ask whether the account already has an open opportunity or a signed agreement, and route those to the owner rather than emailing.
- Healthcare
- Free-plan use at provider and health-tech accounts often stops at the feature that needs real data. Ask which feature each person uses and whether a data agreement is in place, and offer the compliance material alongside the upgrade.
- Retail and e-commerce
- Retail free-plan users run reports before a season and go quiet after it. Ask for feature use in the last 14 days only, and for the head of e-commerce rather than the analyst who ran the reports, unless the analyst is the only user.
- Education
- At schools and universities one person on a free plan often stands in for a department. Ask whether others from the same domain have signed up, and write to the person who can approve a department plan, naming what the current user already does.
Next in product-led growth
+4Stalled signupsFollow up with stalled signupsPeople signed up, logged in, and stopped before the step that makes the product useful. Find where each one stopped and point them at the next step.
+4Product-ledRun outbound on product usageThe strongest signal you have is what people already do inside your product.- +4Paywall hitsTurn paywall hits into upgrade conversationsSomeone hit a limit inside your product. Find out which limit, who else at the account is affected, and offer help before the upgrade pitch.
Connect what this workflow uses
Each guide covers the connection, what Unify reads and writes, and what to check before the first run.
- Connect PostHogConnect PostHog to Unify as a destination, choosing the product events and the person and company context to send.
- Connect SegmentSend supported Segment events into Unify through Webhook (actions).
- Connect SalesforceAuthorize Salesforce in Unify, configure CRM field mappings, and choose when to enable writing.
- Connect HubSpotConnect HubSpot to Unify, map Company and Person fields, and plan CRM exclusions and supported write-back.
- Connect GmailConnect Gmail to Unify for sequence emails and replies.
- Connect OutlookConnect Microsoft Outlook directly to Unify.
Questions about this workflow
How is this different from paywall hits or stalled signups?
Those people either hit a limit or never activated. These people are active, on the free plan, and nothing has forced a decision. The usage itself is the reason to write, so the note names the feature rather than a limit or a next step.
Where does the free-plan usage come from?
From your product's own events. Unify's PostHog guide lists free-plan conversions as a use case: identify free users actively using key features and send them targeted upgrade campaigns. Segment or the Unify Intent client SDK work the same way, one source per app.
How does Unify know which company a free user belongs to?
Through the group or company property on your events. The PostHog guide recommends group analytics with a company group type, and the Unify Intent client sends identify events with the company. Without that mapping, users are people without an account.
Why write to the most active person and not the admin?
On a free plan there is often no admin, and the person who uses the feature most is the one who can say what the team needs. When the CRM has an owner or an open opportunity, the draft goes there instead.