In my experience, 80/20 rule applies. Over 80% of free tier people bring in less than 20% of the income but cause 80% of the problems. If there's a subreddit, frequently it will be swarmed by people who
demand cheaper and freer tiers. The longer your free tier, the more of those types swarm. OpenAI forums were very chill before ChatGPT, and the paid products like plugins remain relatively chill.
I'm not sure if there's a marketing benefit, but free tiers seem to have very low ROI. It attracts lots of tire kickers, the kind of people whose full time job is to evaluate cheaper tools, even if they do 10x less than the ones that cost a little more. It's the kind of thing you do when you need the numbers (e.g. Facebook or a MMO), where the users are also the product. Or if you've completely tapped out other channels.
However, if you haven't proven yourself enough to make the sale, they're a good tool. But generally, the people who are facing the problem the most are already spending a good sum on their own hacky solution, and happy to pay even for a small chance to make things better.
