How to Handle:
“There's a free solution that works”
Free tools have proliferated across every software category. When prospects mention free alternatives, you need to help them understand the hidden costs: limited features, lack of support, security risks, and the time cost of manual workarounds.
Why Prospects Say This
Free tools are appealing, especially for smaller teams or companies without established budgets. However, 'free' often means you pay in other ways: time, missing features, poor support, or data security compromises. Helping them calculate these hidden costs is key.
Best Responses
The Hidden Cost Calculator
“Free is a great price - no argument there. But let's do the math on total cost. How many hours per week does your team spend on [workaround the free tool requires]? At their hourly rate, that's actually costing you [$ amount]. Is 'free' still cheaper?”
Why It Works
This quantifies the time cost of free tools, which is often invisible until someone calculates it. Time has value.
Best For
When free tools require significant manual work or workarounds
The Scale Question
“Free tools are great when you're starting out. The question is: will it scale with you? Most free tools have limits that become painful when you grow. What happens when you hit [specific limitation]? Planning for that now might save you a painful migration later.”
Why It Works
This introduces the cost of future migration and the risks of building on a platform that won't grow with them.
Best For
When talking to growing companies with expansion plans
The Support Reality
“What happens when something breaks with the free solution? When you're stuck at 2 AM on a deadline, who do you call? Our customers pay for peace of mind as much as features. They know there's a team standing behind them. Is that support available with the free option?”
Why It Works
This highlights the support gap that exists with most free tools, which becomes critical during crunch times.
Best For
When reliability and support are important to their business
The Feature Gap
“The free version handles the basics well. But you mentioned needing [advanced feature they discussed]. That's exactly where free tools hit their limit. Is the goal to solve 60% of the problem for free, or 100% of the problem for an investment that pays for itself?”
Why It Works
This reminds them of requirements they've already stated that the free tool can't meet.
Best For
When you've uncovered specific needs that require paid features
The Professional Standard
“There's nothing wrong with starting with free tools - many of our customers did exactly that. They came to us when they needed a professional solution that could grow with them, integrate with their stack, and not put their data at risk. Where are you in that journey?”
Why It Works
This normalizes their consideration of free tools while positioning your solution as the natural evolution.
Best For
When they're graduating from startup phase to more mature operations
Do's and Don'ts
Do This
- Calculate the time cost of manual workarounds required by free tools
- Highlight specific feature gaps that matter for their use case
- Discuss support, security, and reliability differences
- Share stories of customers who started free and upgraded
- Ask about scale requirements and future growth plans
Don't Do This
- Dismiss free tools as worthless - they have legitimate use cases
- Compete purely on features - free tools will always have fewer
- Assume they haven't thought about the trade-offs
- Be condescending about their budget constraints
- Ignore the objection - it needs to be directly addressed
Follow-up Questions to Ask
“What's working well with the free solution, and what's frustrating?”
“How much time does your team spend on workarounds or manual processes?”
“What happens when the free tool hits its limits - what's the fallback plan?”
“How important is having support when something goes wrong?”
“Are there security or compliance requirements the free tool needs to meet?”
“What would need to change for the investment in a paid tool to make sense?”
Industry-Specific Variations
“We're using the free tier of Airtable/Notion/etc.”
“Those are great products - solid free tiers. What usually triggers the upgrade conversation is either hitting the collaboration limits, needing integrations, or the data growing beyond what the free tier handles. Which of those are you closest to running into?”
“We built our own internal tool”
“In-house tools are common in engineering orgs. The question is: how much engineering time goes into maintaining it instead of building product? Most companies we work with find that even a small investment frees up expensive developer hours.”
“We're using the free Google tools”
“Google's free tools are powerful for getting started. Where they usually fall short is in deeper analytics, cross-channel attribution, and automation. You mentioned wanting to [specific goal] - is the free version getting you there?”
Pro Tips
- Free isn't really free - it's paid in time, limitations, or risk. Help them see the full equation.
- Don't fight the 'free is great' narrative. Acknowledge it, then add the 'but here's what you're trading off' context.
- Many of your best customers started with free tools. Frame paid tools as a natural evolution, not a rejection of free.
- If they're truly budget-constrained, offer a path: 'Start with free, come to us when you outgrow it.' Stay in the relationship.
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