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Warning: I fell for the 'free CRM trial' hype and lost 40 hours of setup work
I was super skeptical about switching CRMs mid-cycle, but the sales rep promised a seamless import from my old system. After 3 weeks of migrating data and training my team, the 'free' tier locked us out because we hit the contact limit way sooner than advertised. Has anyone else gotten burned by a trial that felt too good to be true?
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alicec862mo ago
Oh man, that's brutal. I'd be furious if I lost 40 hours of work to a bait and switch like that. Those sales reps know exactly what they're doing when they downplay the limits. My rule of thumb now is to manually count every single contact and field in my old system before even clicking a trial button. Free trials are designed to hook you with convenience and trap you with restrictions.
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logan6321mo ago
40 hours? I mean, I get being annoyed but that seems like a lot of time to invest in a free trial without double checking stuff beforehand. Most of these tools have support chats where you can ask "hey, am I gonna hit a wall at 200 contacts?" and they'll tell you straight up if you push them (though yeah, sometimes they downplay it). I've done a dozen trials over the years and even when I ran into limits, it was more like a minor headache than a full data loss situation. Usually you can export your stuff out or just start over with a clean import once you know the real deal. Feels like some of these stories get blown way out of proportion online.
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Used to think free trials were no risk, but stories like this totally changed my mind. Now I triple check every limit before touching anything.
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