For years we sold digital products on Quick Sprout. Because we already attract hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, our priority wasn’t more traffic—it was better monetization through higher conversion rates (signups-to-paid, successful charges, and lower refunds).

To lift conversions, we ran a series of pricing and risk-reversal experiments over several years:

  • Sell the Traffic System for $197 with no free trial and no money-back guarantee.
  • Sell the Traffic System for $197 with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
  • Sell the Traffic System for $197 with a 7-day free trial requiring a credit card upfront.
  • Sell the Traffic System for $197 with a 7-day free trial requiring a credit card upfront and a 30-day money-back guarantee after the trial.

Here’s what we learned:

Guarantees help build trust

When we first released the Traffic System, there wasn’t a free trial or a money-back guarantee. We simply charged $197—if you loved it, awesome; if not, you were out $197.

We quietly honored refunds for unhappy customers, but buyers couldn’t see that upfront—so perceived risk was high and conversions lagged.

Adding a visible 30-day money-back guarantee increased sales by 21%. Of those purchasers, 12% requested refunds.

Using simple math: if the original offer sold 100 units a month at $197 ($19,700 revenue), the guarantee boosted gross revenue by 21% to $23,837. After 12% refunds, net revenue landed at $20,976.

Net-net, the guarantee lifted monthly revenue by about 6.5%.

Free trials create the most signups

The gap between a money-back guarantee and a free trial was big. Roughly twice as many people started a 7-day trial (credit card required) compared with buying under the guarantee-only offer.

To keep the math consistent with the example above: if the guarantee version yielded 121 purchases (a 21% lift from 100), the free-trial version generated about 242 trial starts in the same period.

Front-end volume looked great, but the back-end told the real story. About 33% of trial users canceled during the 7 days, leaving roughly 162 potential billings.

Then payment friction kicked in. Even after validating credit cards at sign-up, only about 78% of those post-trial accounts successfully billed at $197. That’s ?126 successful charges—meaning around 36 cards failed due to insufficient funds, bank declines, or authentication issues.

Bottom line: the 7-day trial still outperformed the guarantee on revenue—by about 19% in our example (?$24,914 vs. $20,976)—but expect drop-off between trial start and successful billing.

The key takeaway: some people start trials knowing they may not end up paying, and a meaningful percentage will fail billing because of card limits, bank rules, or cross-border payment hurdles. Plan for that leakage.

People don’t care for a guarantee when there is a free trial

We also tested a 7-day free trial plus a 30-day money-back guarantee after the trial. Offering both didn’t change front-end trial starts, and virtually no one requested a refund after being billed.

In practice, the presence of the free trial made the post-trial guarantee irrelevant for conversion.

Conclusion

Here’s how the scenarios shake out on revenue using the same $197 price and the assumptions above:

  • Original offer (no guarantee / no trial): $19,700 a month
  • 30-day money-back guarantee: $20,976 a month
  • 7-day free trial with credit card upfront: ? $24,914 a month
  • 7-day free trial with credit card upfront + 30-day guarantee: ? $24,914 a month

These were our results for the Quick Sprout Traffic System; yours may differ based on audience, product, and payment mix. Don’t assume our winner will be yours—you must run A/B tests.

If we had to do it all over again, we would do a few things differently:

  1. Test a $1 trial instead of $0. A small paid trial can reduce low-intent signups and improve post-trial charge success by filtering out cards likely to fail later.
  2. Set up a dunning & recovery sequence for failed payments. Use smart retries, card-updater tokens, email/SMS reminders, and a one-click “update payment method” link to recover revenue from cards that didn’t go through.
  3. Survey churned trial users and refund requests. Ask why they canceled or wanted a refund, identify friction (onboarding, price, fit), and iterate the offer and onboarding to raise satisfaction before billing.
  4. Offer payment plans and local payment methods for international buyers. Splitting $197 into installments and supporting common regional options can increase successful billings and reduce declines.
  5. Stage value delivery during and after the trial. Either give half the system during the trial and unlock the rest after billing, or deliver the full system on day one and drip high-value bonuses over 30 days to reduce cancellations and refunds.