Free is not a strategy

If the only reason someone uses your product is because it's free, you don't have a customer. You have a hostage who will leave the moment someone offers a better deal.

Free is easy to say yes to. That's the problem. It attracts people who aren't making a decision. They're avoiding one. They didn't choose you. They chose the absence of cost.

The customers you want are the ones willing to pay. Not because they enjoy spending money, but because paying is a signal. It means they've decided this matters. It means they'll engage. It means they'll tell someone.

Free users complain the most and convert the least. They fill your funnel with noise and your support queue with people who never had any intention of becoming customers.

Charge something. Even if it's small. The act of paying changes the relationship from browsing to belonging.