Several companies have embraced the freemium business model, which works great for them. Below are the free vs paid features of well-known companies that use the model:

Dropbox

Dropbox began as a place to back up documents but now offers file sharing, among other features. The basic user version allows uploading 2GB of documents, images and video. For most people, this is not enough space. Faced with choosing which media to upload or paying a modest fee to upgrade, many users choose one of the paid accounts with more generous storage. 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional social network and a B2B database. Its primary uses are establishing your authority, finding work or finding qualified leads. Free users can connect with colleagues and classmates, search and view profiles of other members, and save and get weekly alerts of three searches. The LinkedIn premium version allows users to choose a subscription that suits their needs. 

The paid version has premium features catering to almost every use case: Premium Career helps with job searches, Recruiter Lite is for finding and hiring talent, Sales Navigator does the heavy lifting for sourcing qualified leads, Premium Business gives detailed business insights, and LinkedIn learning provides a platform for everyone to learn and improve their skills. 

Evernote

Evernote is an app for note-taking and organising. You can use it to take notes in various notebooks across various devices. Free users can only sync notes across two devices, contact customer support through self-serve online forums, and cannot access collaborative notebooks or work offline in the app. The basic version also has limitations on the maximum size of notes and monthly uploads into the app. But if you upgrade to a premium version, you no longer encounter those limitations and can sync across multiple devices. 

Spotify

The Spotify app allows users to stream their favourite music from their computer or phone. The free version allows music streaming, but there are adverts between the songs, and consumers cannot skip to specific songs they want. On the other hand, the premium version has offline playlists, allows individual track selection, and consumers can connect to other devices such as smart speakers. 

Zapier

Zapier allows users to link different digital tools together via sequences of automatic triggers. Free users can only create Zaps at a time, while premium consumers can access multi-step steps and thus can perform more complex automation. For example, an initial trigger would be a survey submitted on Google Forms and a subsequent task of transferring that survey data to an email contact database.