I doubt that a meaningful number of users creates new accounts every 7 days just to avoid paying. Setting up a new account is usually enough work that it is not worth it. But if that is the case for your service, here are three things from the top of my head that might even work. If instead you just block disposable email addresses, I might as well look somewhere else.

* Reduce the trial period for users with a disposable email.

* Don't allow data import/export so that creating a new account is more work.

* Reduce cookie lifetime so that a login is needed more often.

Thanks, the first idea is a really good one for our use case. (the other ideas won't work unfortunately)

And yes, it is not a meaningful number of people that do so, but over time this is very ugly and frustrating (as it requires manual intervention) and you block the disposable Email provider they used ...

> but over time this is very ugly and frustrating (as it requires manual intervention) and you block the disposable Email provider they used ...

This seems like an ego issue honestly. Like you feel like you are being taken advantage of. If only a very small numbers of users are doing this then I don't see it worth the dev time to block the email providers they use possibly hurting valid customers. Just leave it alone. I use Relay for services I genuinely pay for but don't want to give out my email address in case of leaks.

Your free trial is too generous.

Suggest using the Standard plan but with significant rate limiting. Like 5/day.

If they want to remove that, enter credit card details which you verify.

You can still have the trial expire and the credit card isn't ever charged; but you can track people on trials more easily.

> You can still have the trial expire and the credit card isn't ever charged; but you can track people on trials more easily.

I think that someone who doesn't want to give their real email address to try out a service is even less likely to trust an unknown service with their credit card number. There are just too many "free trials" that promise to not charge your credit card and then make you jump all sorts of hurdles (e.g., having to call) to cancel the free trial.

> I think that someone who doesn't want to give their real email address to try out a service is even less likely to trust an unknown service with their credit card number.

I think you'd be surprised. Credit cards are easier to dispose of then email addresses, and they offer greater protection with fraud and billing dispute processes. Some banks even offer virtual cards that let you set limits on duration or amount.

> I think that someone who doesn't want to give their real email address to try out a service is even less likely to trust an unknown service with their credit card number.

And that's OK. The problem as I understand it is that people are signing up with disposable email addresses, using the API key they receive for 7 days, and then signing up again. They are leeches, exploiting the generous free trial.

If they stop signing up, no problem. Other people who sign up with a disposable email address can test within the restrictions, and once they trust the service have a choice to enter card details or not. If they are planning to do business with the service, they're going to have to trust it with card details.

I mean, if its not having a notable impact except emotionally, maybe its better to just let it be?

Missing the forest for the trees and all

Probably. But if we wouldn't block certain disposable Email providers since years, maybe this would be already dozens per month.

> just sign up with disposable Emails for the 7 day trial over and over again?

That's a lot of effort to go through to avoid paying for something. And I guess you can't keep your data or configuration, if the app has any.

That happens quite frequently to our SaaS where people need free access to a new API key. We try to block multiple registrations but there are people who also invest into proxies to circumvent this protection...

people who want to bypass those restrictions can easily do it. It is trivial to get a bunch of mail addresses to use, even without "disposable mail" providers. People who try to abuse the trial period over and over will do. Blocking the disposable mail providers however also blocks users who are curious, but not yet committed.

I argue that maths is negative for your business and a better approachbis to make it easy tonget started, but show them clear benefit of switching plans. Maybe a cheap entry level plan with a small set of convenience features, not available to the test account.

Just a few idea: Make it useful to have a persistent identity, so you have something to lose if you abandon the account (like a library of games in steam, or a network of friends on facebook). Require a payment method and limit how many free trials can be activated with the same card. Require a phone number since they a harder to get than emails.

I really dislike services that require payment or telephone numbers for verification just to try out a service. And we are unsure if this increases friction for normal users.

If someone wants to use disposable email addresses out of fear of having the service sell or abuse their permanent email address, they will most likely also not be willing to reveal their phone number.

Make the service less useful in the free trial period — for instance a really low cap on API requests per hour/day or limit the user to cresting a very small number of records/items when they aren’t paying.