(You'll need more than you think).
We'll assume trial-to-paid conversion is 40% - 60%.
You'll want at least 200-300 trials per month. (More if you have lower-priced plans).
- # of founders and employees you have
- what you want out of the business
- cost to acquire a customer
- churn %, and LTV
But generally:
If you're bootstrapping SaaS, you're likely going to need hundreds of trials per month.
People I know in this category (who target SMB) are generally getting at least 200-500 new trials per month.
(Again: this depends on your price point, churn, CAC)
For me, 200 trials per month was when I went full-time on the business.
The fundamentals of SaaS are different.
You can't dedicate significant resources to nurturing just a few leads a month.
You want to see a lineup of people queuing up for your product every day. (Like at a coffee shop)
Otherwise, you're selling enterprise software (which is fine; just a different model).
Here's how many monthly trials we're getting:
250
400
300
600
(These are 2-3 person companies.)