Free Trial Abuse Cost Calculator
Estimate what free trial abuse and fake signups cost your SaaS. Enter how many trials start each month, the share you believe are abusive, and what one abused trial costs you, and the calculator multiplies them out. It uses only those figures, and your numbers never leave your browser.
The specimen who burns a trial and comes back under a fresh email isn't paying for the compute, the support reply, or the credit. You are. The form starts with round placeholder numbers so it isn't blank; swap in your own to get a figure that means something for your trial program.
Illustrative defaults. Change every field. Nothing on this page is an industry average.
New trials that begin in a typical month, including the ones that will never pay.
Direct cost only: infrastructure, support, and promo credits. Leave opportunity cost for the optional fields below.
Your estimate, not a Dregs benchmark. The number and the slider stay in sync.
Abused trials / month
Estimated monthly loss
Estimated annual loss
Direct cost only. Annual loss is twelve times the month you entered, and the optional opportunity line below isn't added to it.
50 means half the rate you entered, not 50 percentage points less, so the default 8% becomes 4%. It's a what-if, not a promise that any product will get you there.
Abuse rate after the drop
Direct cost avoided / month
Direct cost avoided / year
Optional: good trials crowded out
Leave these blank unless abused trials are taking slots genuine prospects would have used. Filling in both adds a separate opportunity cost line, which isn't included in the loss above.
Good trials displaced / month
Equal to the abused-trial count, under the assumption that each one took a genuine slot.
Paid conversions crowded out / month
Displaced trials times the conversion rate you entered.
Opportunity cost / month
Opportunity cost / year
The same reduction would avoid of this opportunity cost per month. This what-if stays out of the direct loss figures.
Want the accounts behind a number like this flagged on your own site? Start a free Dregs trial (14 days, no card), or read how detection works for free trial abuse.
How the estimate is calculated
It's straight multiplication. With the defaults (1,000 trial starts, an estimated 8% abuse rate, and $10 per abused trial) it shows 80 abused trials, $800 a month, and $9,600 a year. Change any input and the figures follow.
- Abused trials per month equals monthly trial starts times the abuse rate, divided by 100.
- Monthly loss equals abused trials times the cost per abused trial.
- Annual loss equals the monthly loss times 12. It assumes the month you entered repeats.
- Savings equals that monthly loss times the reduction you set, divided by 100. A reduction of 50 avoids half of the direct cost, because the loss scales in a straight line with the abuse rate.
If you'd rather see the behavior behind the bill, start with free trial abuse, fake signups, and duplicate accounts. The same person often shows up under all three names.
What belongs in the cost
Put in what you actually spend on a trial that never pays: infrastructure for the days the account is active, the support reply it triggers, the promo credit or signup coupon it spends, the SMS or email that goes out to confirm it. If payment fraud or a later chargeback is part of what a bad signup costs you, fold a figure you believe into this field yourself; the calculator won't invent one.
Leave out the revenue a genuine customer might have produced. That's a different question, and it has its own fields. If your trial program has room to spare, a freeloader signing up alongside everyone else doesn't cost you a customer. The direct cost is still real, but the crowded-out revenue is only real when the slot was scarce.
When good trials are crowded out
The optional line answers a what-if: suppose each abused trial had been a genuine trial instead. The calculator converts the count of abused trials at the rate you enter, which gives the paid conversions crowded out, then multiplies those by the first-year revenue or lifetime value you enter to get the opportunity cost.
It stays off the monthly and annual loss on purpose, because adding it in would present a counterfactual as money already spent. If the abuse on your site shows up as extra signups rather than signups that displaced someone, leave the two fields blank and go by the direct cost.
Stop free trial abuse before the next cycle.
Dregs helps you catch repeat trials and fake signups by linking accounts that share a device, an address pattern, or a session, then scoring the identity. Each score opens into its observations, so you can see exactly why an account was flagged and keep false positives off a household that merely shares a laptop.
14 days, no credit card. To see how the abuse plays out and how Dregs catches it, read the free trial abuse page.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the free trial abuse cost calculator work?
It multiplies the monthly trial starts you enter by the abuse rate you estimate, then by the cost you assign to each abused trial, and that's your estimated monthly loss. Annual loss is the monthly figure times twelve, and the count of abused trials is the same multiplication without the cost. The page runs in your browser and doesn't send your numbers anywhere.
Are the default numbers an industry average?
No. The defaults are round placeholder numbers so the form isn't blank. They aren't a survey, a benchmark, or a claim about what a typical SaaS loses to free trial abuse or fake signups. Replace them with your own trial volume, your own abuse rate estimate, and your own cost.
What should I include in the cost per abused trial?
Include the direct cost of a trial that never pays: infrastructure, support time, promotional credits, and messaging you can put a price on. If you're unsure, use a conservative figure you can defend. Leave opportunity cost out of this field; the optional conversion and revenue fields handle it separately, as a what-if.
What does the crowded-out trials line mean?
If you fill in both a conversion rate for genuine trials and a first-year revenue or lifetime value per converted trial, the calculator estimates the revenue those abused trials would have represented if each one had instead been a genuine trial converting at your rate. It's a counterfactual that applies only when an abused trial takes a slot a real prospect would have used, so it isn't added to the direct monthly or annual loss.
Does a 50 percent drop mean the abuse rate becomes 50 percent?
No. A 50 percent drop cuts the abuse rate you entered in half, so if you entered 8 percent, the savings line uses 4 percent. It doesn't subtract 50 percentage points, and it doesn't claim any product will achieve that reduction. Change the percentage to whatever cut you want to test.
Does this calculator detect free trial abuse?
No. It only prices the numbers you type in. Catching repeat trials, disposable addresses, and linked accounts on your own site takes a tracking script. Once it's installed, Dregs scores those identities and opens each score into its observations, so your team can see exactly why an account was flagged.
Is the trial abuse cost calculator free?
Yes. It runs in your browser with no account, no API key, and no credit card. You only need an account if you want Dregs to score signups on your own site, and that account starts with a 14-day trial that doesn't require a card.