Best anecdotal evidence/advice I've heard is that it'll significantly reduce your volume of signups, but also significantly increase your rate of conversions from sign-ups to paying customers.<p>Whether the increased conversion rate overcomes the reduction in signup volumes is the big question. I suspect it's different for everybody, and the only way to find out is to test.<p>One thing that'll affect your decision, is what the cost to you of "freeloading" no-credit-card signups is, and whether it's worth forgoing them to concentrate on the more-likely-to-convert signups who are prepared to put their CC number down. If you're offering a SaaS or Pass thing where the incremental cost for each new signup is extremely c heap (like cents or less), then it's much easier to justify a totally free non credit card trial than if whatever you're selling has incremental costs in the dollars or tens of dollars range.<p>(And, the flip side to that, if you want to build an Uber style "grab all the market while supported by ever increasing VC round funding and profit after you've collected all the underwear" business, then don't ask for CC numbers up front. Or even at all... And hope you can flip $700mil of shares before your Uber-but-for-office-space business crashes down around everybody...)
I'd never sign up for a "free trial" that required a credit card. My experience suggests that it will be a hassle to cancel the service if I find out that I'm not interested after 7 days.