Do you know what the most played game is? It is PUBG, which is a free-to-play game. Do you know how much money this game makes? In 2023, PUBG made over $6 billion in revenue. Despite being free, the game makes a lot of money. In 2023, Facebook made over $100 billion in revenue and it is free to use platform.

Make Money From Free Products

Do you know there are only 5 apps on Google Play that have been downloaded more than 10 billion times? Interestingly, all of these apps are from Google, and even more interesting is these apps are free.

Let me explain this with how Google makes money with a free service called Google Map.

When you search on Google map, there is a list of businesses. The first result is not organic, it is a paid listing. Google makes money from this ad.

When you search on Google map you will see some pins are not on pear drop shape instead they are square shape. These are promoted pins. While regular pins will disappear while zooming out, promoted pins stay on its place. 

Google gives paid APIs for big companies for navigation, route planning, etc.

Google also makes money through Google Guaranteed Business.

Sometimes you don’t have to sell products to make money, you can make money even on free products.

In order to make money, you don’t always have to charge money for your products. You can offer free products and still make money from your free products.

Here are a few examples.

You create software, a tool, a program, etc., and offer the basic feature for free and charge a certain price for the premium version. People who like your basic feature will certainly buy the premium edition. For example, you create a course and offer the basic version for free and offer a premium price for the full version.

You create a free service and offer additional features for a certain price. For example, you create a dating website that is free but you ask for payment in order to send a message to another user.

You organize a free webinar, since it is free a lot of people will sign up. You can then sell products and services through your webinar.

How to Make Money From Free Webinars?

Webinars are also a great way to make money. You announce your webinar and start selling entry tickets. People who are interested in your topic, will surely pay and book their spot. Let’s say your webinar is about “how to build a dropshipping business.” People who are interested in dropshipping business will pay entry fees. You can get a lot of people to sign up by promoting your webinar through social platforms.

Interestingly, you can also make money from free webinars. You can make money from a free web through sponsorship and selling products and services. Here’s how you can do it.

You announce a webinar and get as many people as you can to sign up for the webinar. Let’s say 200 people signed up for your webinar. You can now pitch your webinar to businesses and individuals who have products and services related to your webinar topic. They might be interested in sponsoring your webinar.

Your webinar can be completely free but you can also sell your services and products through the webinars. For example, your webinar is about “how to write effectively.” You create an ebook on the same topic and ask the participants to buy your book. If your audience liked your webinar, they will be interested in buying your book as well.

How to Make Money From Freemium Products and Services?

The word freemium is coined through two words free and premium. Freemium is a pricing strategy used by many businesses for their products and services in which the product and service come with two different pricing models free and premium. The free version is completely free for a lifetime or a certain time, and the premium version has a price attached to it. The free version has basic features and the premium version has additional features or advanced features.

You can find a lot of examples of freemium products and services.

Spotify offers basic ad-supported limited services for free but unlimited subscriptions cost money.

Most anti-virus has a free version and a premium version.

The basic idea behind freemium is to sell the service or product by allowing the users to try it for free. When they like it they will buy the premium version. This pricing model has become very effective in recent times. Not just big businesses but small and medium enterprises also use this pricing model.

Free video games like Fortnite, PUBG, Roblux, etc. make money through this pricing model. Canva is based on a freemium model. SEO services like Semrush and Moz are also freemium services.

If you have created a product and service, try using the freemium model.

Affiliate Marketing With Freemium Products

Have you thought about referring freemium products to make money, well, this is a wonderful way to make money through affiliate marketing. When you refer to freemium products, and when your customers like the free product and end up buying the premium version you can make money. Consumers are so concerned these days that they don't buy any random product they see in the market even if they see it being beneficial. However, they are impressed with the word free, therefore, they will consider signing up for the product or service if it does not cost any money. There are a lot of freemium products available in the market and you can try referring these products to your customers. Binance and Coinbase are free services, however, when people you refer start using these platforms you will earn a commission. However, in order to benefit, you need to promote these products to the people who are actually interested in these products.