Analysis of Freemium Business Model Considering Network Externalities and Consumer Uncertainty

Abstract

An emerging business model increasingly used by companies in the online software market is to provide both a free basic version and a paid premium version for a service or a product to customers. Such a setting is often called freemium model. The existence of the free version can reduce the customer uncertainty regarding the evaluation of the commercial software and make use of network effect to improve the firm’s profit. However, the freemium model may also have the cannibalization effect which can hurt the profit. Hence, the firm needs to determine the optimal content for the free version and the optimal price for the premium version to maximize its profit. In this paper, first, we obtain the optimal decisions of the freemium model and their properties. Second, we compare the freemium model with the traditional charge-for-everything model that all content of the product need to be charged in terms of the profit, customer welfare, and social welfare. The results show that when customer underestimates the value of the software significantly and the true value of the software is high enough, the freemium model can generate higher profit, higher customer welfare, and higher social welfare. Otherwise, the freemium model may not deliver the desired results.