freemium

UK/ˈfɹiː.miː.əm/US/ˈfɹiː.miː.əm/

nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

Freemium means free to use, with the good parts charged for. A freemium model.

About one user in fifty pays, which is why the free version has to be very cheap to run. Freemium works only where the paid version solves a problem the free one creates.

Definitions of freemium

1nounfreemiumFree to use, with the good parts charged for.C1
“The freemium version did everything except let him export anything.”

freemium is a model.

Where it comes from

A blend of free and premium, coined in 2006.

free and premium.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Marketing & Advertising

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freemium in the wild

The term shareware is largely out of use in the modern computing world, replaced by trialware or freemium.
Shareware
The term freemium was coined in 2006 in response to a blog post by venture capitalist Fred Wilson.
Freemium
The game received mixed reviews, with critics praising the core premise, but criticizing the game's excessive in-app purchases and freemium-based time restrictions.
Iron Man 3: The Official Game
Clara.io was web-based freemium 3D computer graphics software developed by Exocortex, a Canadian software company, active from 2013-2022.
Clara.io
The free or "Basic" component of their freemium offering, however, placed severe restrictions, such as on saving models and importing texture maps.
Clara.io

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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