Andrei Robu

Does anyone have any insights about offering trial fonts?

Did you feel a change after you started offering them?

I'm still trying to figure out if they're good for business.

A few concerns are:
- Easier for people to steal them, recompile and sell on platforms like Creative Market etc.
- Getting files for free takes away the buy impulse.
- Hard to police if they are used commercially.

What are your thoughts on this?

Jul 11, 2023 at 3:14pmWeb
Show threadColin M. FordJul 11, 2023
@fonts Our thoughts are:
- Trust people and they will trust you back
- Demo fonts *could* lead to a big license from an agency, so that might out weigh the risks of losing a few smaller sales
- If they use demo fonts for something nefarious then we probably weren't gonna get that sale anyway (they would just go on DaFont)
- At least we get an email for our mailing list, and since we treated them nicely maybe they'll come back to us in the future.
Show threadRutherford CrazeJul 11, 2023

@fonts My take has long been that any sufficiently determined pirate will eventually find a way of getting the fonts.

Trials are a decent compromise for letting potential customers test the fonts, while still making it inconvenient for would-be pirates.

(That said, later this week I’ll start testing unrestricted, non-subset trial fonts — the Nichrome files leaked online long before trials were available, and that typeface still sells, so maybe it’s worth the risk to be more user-friendly.)

Show threadKris SowersbyJul 11, 2023
@fonts Do it. If you’re worried about piracy, offer stripped-back versions. But fonts are largely b2b, businesses usually want to do the right thing.