What is an ‘Ungated’ acquisition model, and should you build it?

"Ungating" a product typically means allowing visitors to interact with the product without signup or any other entry friction. Let's see if the model fits your product.

Ungating means that access and use of some of the product's core features are frictionless from the user's perspective. This means not requiring signup - or other hurdles - that companies typically put up before allowing users to interact with a product. 

While freemium, free-trial, and reverse trial models have their place in modern PLG-based businesses and are widely discussed in the community, the ungated model is far less explored and widespread. Let’s review what it is. 

Improving the whole funnel through Time-to-Value enhancements

As OpenView Partners puts it, one of the key pillars of Product-Led Growth is to provide value to users before extracting it from them. Put another way, give something before asking for money.

One important concept related to providing value is the time a user takes to extract that value from the solution — Time-To-Value. Many PLG articles look at how best to guide users to value, measure it with an activation metric and reduce the time it takes them to reach that value. Why is this so important?

Profitwell (now Paddle), a well-known thought leader on monetisation and pricing, believes that users are more likely to choose your product if the value is realised quickly. They form a coherent, cohesive picture of your product early in their buying cycle, and they may not even fully understand cumbersome competitors if they like you enough. 

Companies run experiments to determine how many questions are optimal at sign-up and which onboarding flows work best for their complex product. Customer Success is brought to add a human touch to the onboarding process. So much is done to support the user on the path to capturing value. There is a more straightforward solution to improve time-to-value - removing all friction and complexity from the product rather than optimising the experience around the product.

So, most ungated acquisition models allow users to start using the product without providing any data. Is there a trade-off?

For sure. As many users have low intent to use the product, most won’t progress to account creation after using the product in an ungated model. The number of leads will decrease, and your sales or customer success team won’t be able to talk to these users. Your marketing won’t be able to communicate with them as well. This trade-off might make an ungated experience not suitable for some companies. 

Deconstructing Ungated experiences

If we look at products that show the product without signup, we’ll see two ways to do so: a self-service demo and the ability to use a product directly without registration. 

Echometer – performing primary use case without signing up

The Echometer app allows you to run an Agile retrospective without signing up. You can use the product to discuss a past sprint's bad and good aspects. Instead of asking you to sign up and do a limited number of retrospectives or a few before the free trial expires, you can do retrospectives without providing personal information. 

The biggest challenge is converting satisfied visitors (retro facilitators and participants) into actual users of the product. The ungated experience should leave visitors longing for more and offer additional high-impact benefits for signing up. This is typically achieved through limitations. While some functionality is available, other functionality requires you to sign up. We’ll see that in a few other examples. 

Amplitude – emulating product usage through self-service demo

Amplitude, one of the best analytical tools for product-led companies, has a self-service demo. The demo experience has fictional data, so you can’t extract the solution’s value for your direct benefit. Still, the main idea is to learn how to use the product and see its full benefits. Even ‘truly ungated’ products require you to sign up to extract the terminal value from the use case, i.e., sign up to download an image you created. 

Amplitude offers a unique Ungated experience that is well worth studying. At the start of the self-service demo, the user is presented with a dashboard relating to a fictitious product. Each chart on this dashboard provides a clear insight that is easy to understand. This removes all the cognitive load users typically have when exploring a new product. 

Amplitude requires extensive integration and a long evaluation cycle before providing value. The self-service demo is used to circumvent that problem and help end users and buyers understand the solution in their daily context.

Contrary to what’s written there, amplitude does not have a true ‘ungated’ experience as it asks for an email and a name. Still, the friction to reach a self-service demo experience is far lower than for a new account. 

Amplitude has recently started to deprioritise the Ungated experience (it’s now secondary to account creation) in light of the growing complexity of the product, numerous new use cases, and a greater focus on driving more new accounts.

Colossyan – performing the primary use case without signup

Colossyan, a product that allows you to create a video with an AI actor, greets a visitor to a homepage with a solid prompt to create a video immediately without signing up. Interestingly, for Colossyan, this serves not only to reduce time-to-value significantly but also to build trust and credibility with the audience. 

Colossyan has been utilising the ungated experience for quite some time, long before many other products introduced AI avatars. The product offers an innovative use case for creating a video with AI actors and a complete AI voiceover. 

Before the AI hype, convincing visitors that this use case truly works was crucial. There was no better approach than allowing people to experiment with it. A sceptical audience at that time might have decided not to go through signup and onboarding just to try something they didn’t consider possible. Ungated experience reduced friction to a point where you could get into creation directly. 

It is still an essential component of acquisition strategy. New visitors get to decide whether Colossyan delivers on value proposition in minutes. With in-built templates, that becomes even faster and easier. 

For semi-innovative products, the Ungated experience can help drive more virality. It’s much easier to send a link to a colleague or a friend when they don’t need to sign up to try the product. 

Duolingo – activating & showing ‘wow’ before signup

Duolingo is probably the most renowned educational app in the world aimed at helping people learn languages. The product covers more use cases than language learning now, but the primary base is still in languages. 

Duolingo embeds part of the experience right before the signup. Before asking for account details, Duolingo gives a lesson for a selected language. That experience achieves multiple goals:

1. Capitalises on the momentum of “I want to learn a language!” by driving time-to-value (learning the first few words) before asking anything from the user

2. Shows how uncomplicated learning a language can be and builds expectations of how easy it will be to use Duolingo

3. Builds positive sentiment by showing users that they already learned something

4. Creates a post-signup experience where a user has already passed through one lesson

While Duolingo is dissimilar from other ungated products, its ungated experience is one of the best-thought product experiences ever built. 

The company utilises behavioural principles to an excellent degree, so if you’d like to learn how to build great products – study how Duolingo works. 

Canva – ungated experience as a last frontier

Canva has ungated experience through a few entry points. For example, template pages allow you to go into the image editor directly. Canva still prompts users to sign up, but the editor is presented if they are unwilling to do so. Canva previously experimented with who and when to allow the ungated experience, and some time ago, there were more entry points without additional friction (such as an initial prompt to sign up). 

Canva exemplifies a segmented approach to multiple acquisition tactics. Their primary tactic is freemium (with sales demo targeted at bigger companies), and ungated experience is reserved for a few specific cases where time-to-value is critical (such as searching for a specific template). I’ll discuss the segmentation of different acquisition tactics later in the post. 

Users are prompted to sign up after clicking on a download button. However, if the user decides not to register and closes the modal with sign-up fields, Canva initiates the download anyway. The solution keeps users happy by providing them with the result of their work without the signup but still tries to convert visitors into real accounts. Canva plays the long game. Even if the user does not sign up immediately, the pleasant experience and resulting design will keep the user returning when needed. 

When should you build an ungated experience?

To understand whether the Ungated experience suits your product, consider the factors that make it successful. I identify four main areas you must assess first:

1. Audience/Segment fit

2. Ability to show value proposition through ungated experience

3. Strength of potential value propositions

4. Ability to measure success

Will your ungated experience be focused on a high- or mid-intent audience?

Most products have multiple funnels to attract new customers: сore funnel for the primary use case, viral, community, sidecar products, templates and others. The type of funnel through which the user gets the ungated experience is critical. Funnels (or loops) are not all the same - some generate a high-intent audience with a high propensity to buy, while others bring you a lower-quality audience that is not sure they have a problem to solve or a need to fulfil.

Intuitively, offering the Ungated experience exclusively to an audience with low intent seems fitting. After all, a high-intent audience has no problem starting a freemium or a trial account, while a low-intent audience leaves as soon it encounters friction. This argument leads to the conclusion that we should provide an ungated experience to a low-intent audience to improve metrics for an underperforming segment.

But it does not work that way for Ungated products. The low-intent audience will try to get the benefit from your Ungated experience and will disappear when that benefit is no longer there. This is no great loss because this target group does not have a great need for your product, but you cannot communicate with them if you go with an Ungated model. Instead, you have to rely on them to remember you.

In contrast, a target audience with a high (or medium) intent may benefit by realising the value of your product without having to overcome the typical hurdles. Of course, they may not buy regardless of the experience – but your job is to show the value of your product, not convert at any cost when the product is not needed. 

You rarely can hack the problem of low-intent audiences not converting at the same pace as a high-intent audience. Trying to target low-intent audiences with ungated experience only sets the model for failure. 

Can you show key decision drivers with Ungated experience?

Fully understanding a product’s value proposition sometimes requires not only going through setup and performing key action but also understanding how advanced features and experiences work. 

For example, if you need a CRM to track manually created leads in the funnel, HubSpot would not differ significantly from the competition. However, most companies using a CRM have a much broader set of use cases and needs, such as customizability, interoperability with other solutions, integrations, automation, and others. 

The ungated experience should demonstrate enough of the solution's value but leave visitors longing for more and excited about diving even deeper. If an ungated experience cannot do that, users might misunderstand your product and get a wrong perception about it. 

Getting this delicate balance right is hard, especially for complex products. A self-service demo might be a better solution in such situations. 

Can you provide a reason to sign up in your Ungated experience?

An Ungated experience allows potential customers to interact with the product or a part of it to perform certain activities. This can make them less willing to sign up for several reasons:

1. The user doesn’t feel a need to sign up after completing a use case

2. The user evaluates the product as incomplete to their needs

3. Other reasons

There are two ways to mitigate those problems:

1. Provide value-adding incentives to signup

2. Limit your ungated experience, so a user is required to sign up to complete the use case

We will discuss these mitigation tactics in this article, but you need to be clear upfront about whether you can structure your Ungated experience in one of these ways. 

For example, if you offer the option to perform a specific activity within your Ungated experience and prompt to signup to save the results, this may not be enough for the user to feel compelled to sign up - after all, they are (hopefully) satisfied with the experience and may not feel the urgent need to save these results to the account. The user may take a screenshot of the results and leave.

Do you measure success in a way that allows Ungated experience?

In organisations that have not matured their approach, PLG sometimes creates pressure to impact specific, isolated metrics, even to the detriment of a broader picture. Other aspects such as awareness, satisfaction and usability become less of a priority, to the point of creating detractory experiences that provide a short-term boost in 'business metrics'. 

Ungated experiences may not lead to an immediate improvement in metrics and can sometimes lead to a short-term drop in metrics. It varies from case to case, but you may see a drop in the number of accounts created as users are happy to have their use case resolved. They will not sign up if they do not have to perform the use case regularly or feel they do not need to invest in solving the problem. On the other hand, visitors who go through the Ungated experience are more likely to convert because they got value from the solution before they signed up.

In the long run, you will generate more awareness and usage, and as the problem you solve becomes more urgent to the user, they will have you at the top of their list rather than one of the competitors. You should analyse the results of ungated experiences long-term, as some visitors will convert much later. 

The Ungated experience will lead to changes to the entire funnel, starting with account creation and ending with conversion to paid. You need to own the entire funnel and have enough agency to make decisions based on the overall impact on the funnel.

How to build an Ungated experience?

Ungating the product is simple, yet it is not easy. To mitigate the risks, here are seven steps you must cover before committing any resources to build your Ungated experience. 

Select the use case and the primary audience

The first step is to understand which use case (or use cases) should be accessible through ungated experience and by what audience. As discussed previously, you need to provide a complete experience showing the value proposition and addressing your audience's decision factors. 

One easy approximation of that is your activation moment (it is the moment when your new users experience the value of your product for the first time in freemium/free trial models). 

If you have not defined an activation metric and are unwilling to do quantitative and qualitative research to determine the right activation moment, you can start with a few simple questions: "What is the moment in product use when new users 'get it' about our product? What is the Aha moment?" After answering these questions, you will at least have a vague hypothesis about what is a must for your Ungated experience.

Decide on the type of Ungated experience

While it is debatable whether a self-service demo is truly an example of an ungated experience, I still believe that the choice is between a self-service demo and opening up a part of your app for usage without signup. 

If you have had a problem defining the primary use case to show just because on each iteration you've realised that the coveted 'Aha' moment lies deep beneath the simple interaction with your product, then a self-service demo might be the right choice for you. 

A look back at Amplitude shows that there is little point in opening up the ability to do segmentation or funnel analysis if there is no data on which to base that analysis. The same is true for CRM products. What is the point of opening up the ability to create and move leads in the Kanban view without all the benefits and value of CRM? You'd rather create an account with lots of pre-generated data to showcase your assets. These products require extensive setup to be used properly. For both of these examples, the self-service demo fits well. 

In contrast, with Canva, the main value is the ability to design something beautiful. You will have many other features related to the paid plans, but the most important thing is your editing experience, and the "aha" moment is achievable through the Ungated experience. A self-service demo won’t provide any benefits as there is no time-consuming setup phase. 

Drive the experience proactively

A new freemium or trial user you acquire undergoes an onboarding process where you highlight the key actions they need to complete in their first experience. Ungated experience is the same - users land in an unfamiliar solution. They may need help identifying which specific features here support the use case and unlock the value you offer. 

Simplify the experience as much as possible without losing essential features and benefits for the use case(s) you are showing. Ideally, the setup is done, less important features are visible but not usable, and the essential elements of UI are highlighted. 

A user came to you to solve a problem or satisfy a need, and the ability to do this on the spot will not suffice as a 'benefit' if your user experience is terrible. You can only Ungate the product if it is built in a way that allows easy self-service discovery.

Personalise the experience with almost no data

Ungated Experience is designed to reduce friction on entry to improve time-to-value. This is achieved by removing all the questions you usually ask on signup. The biggest hurdles for potential users are personal data or credentials (email, phone number, password).  

But even if you know almost nothing about the visitor who came to your Ungated experience, there is still a way to improve the experience and provide more clarity about the benefits of your solution.

There are two types of personalisation you can introduce in the Ungated experience:

1. Use case refinement

2. Repeat usage

Use case refinement

You can refine the use case you allow within the Ungated experience by understanding the critical decision drivers of the audience by asking questions before you show the Ungated experience. This creates friction but is directly related to the value you provide and is not a dealbreaker.

Basic examples include:

• Their skill level, which can impact the level of guidance in the UI

• Sub use case, which can influence what you will highlight or what feature you will enable

• Industry / Job, which can impact templates that you will offer to jump-start the Ungated experience

Any personalisation you introduce should positively impact time to value, simplify the experience and highlight the key decision factors for your target audience when choosing a solution in your product category.

Repeat usage

If you do not offer enough incentives to make people sign up for a complete solution, they may return to the Ungated experience to extract more value. If you aren't keen on limiting Ungated usage, consider adding value for returning users.

This can start with keeping essential data from their session so that they are reminded of the value they have already gained and can iterate on their previous work. 

More advanced personalisations for repeat use consider a broader perspective: personalised CTAs to reach human support, in-app learning opportunities and others. These can contribute directly to the user experience or aim to introduce more touchpoints that encourage customers to convert. After all, they show a very high intent by returning and using your solution again.

Create incentives to sign up & take care of the post-signup experience

Regardless of whether users came to the finish line of their use case in the Ungated experience, they must be motivated to sign up for an account. 

There are two ways to motivate users to sign up after the Ungated experience:

1. Limit the ungated experience

2. Incentivise the signup with additional relevant value 

Limiting the Ungated experience

This is the simplest option and can occur either in the final stages of use case execution (e.g., requiring signup before downloading a created asset) or within the experience itself (a feature relevant to the use case is visible but unavailable in the Ungated experience). 

Things to look out for when limiting the ungated experience:

1. Can it be easily bypassed? For example, taking a screenshot of the design and being happy with the resulting quality. 

2. Does a user hit the limit after being sufficiently involved and happy with the solution? If a user gets hit with a limitation too early, they may not have enough goodwill to sign up. 

Incentivising the sign-up with additional value

After completing the use case, the user might be happy with the result but not motivated enough to sign up. The signup process involves some friction. Users who see the long-term value of the solution will have an easy time inputting their data. More sceptical users may leave even after having a good experience and needing the solution. No psychological investment has been made at this stage, and trying another solution is easy. 

It’s crucial to help users understand why creating an account benefits them. On the other hand, if you lead with “saving the work in your account,” that may shift the focus to something they don’t need. It may be better to show that they can edit their work (alternatively, showing that no edits will be possible later on if they don’t sign up). You must find these motivational factors because they’ll be specific to your use case and solution. 

You can combine both options (limits and incentives). The bulk of optimisation of the ungated experience happens there. 

Take care of the post-signup experience

An Ungated experience has implications for the entire funnel. Users signing up after an ungated experience have a much better understanding of the product than users coming to freemium or trial from landing pages. 

Your onboarding flows for the regular funnel should be restructured to support this knowledgeable user.

Ensure suitable entry points

An Ungated experience should have an entry point, and it will compete with other CTAs (request demo, start trial, and others). Owners of the different parts of the web experience will have their own goals to drive the funnel from these pages. 

To make the Ungated experience work, you should promote the experience and allow it to appeal to a high-intent audience. Senior management has to support the experimental bet to provide you with an internal buy-in and alignment. Otherwise, it will be relegated to places that are impossible to find.

There is no one right approach, and you may need to experiment to find what works for you. The options are:

1. Replace self-service entry points, such as “start a free trial” or “get a freemium account”, with entry points to the Ungated experience

2. Replace all CTAs, including the ones generating the Sales funnel, on common pages with an entry point to the Ungated experience

3. Replace CTAs (specific or all) based on intent, use case, acquisition channel or other types of acquisition data

4. Make them all compete for attention

The Ungated experience is undoubtedly a big bet and will disrupt your standard workflows. So it's not enough to build it - internal alignment and the right entry points are no less important than a good product experience. 

Ungating it all the way… and back

While the logic of reducing time-to-value by ungating the product is relatively sound, the actual results will vary. There are too many variables to predict whether the financial results will improve in each case. I don’t think the Ungated model fits every product or every channel.