Introducing the CountHub Free Tier: 500 Credits a Month, No Card Required

When we launched CountHub, we followed the SaaS pricing playbook every competitor uses: four tiers scaled by usage volume (Starter, Pro, Business, Enterprise), plus one-off credit topups for occasional spikes. It looked reasonable on the pricing page. It was confusing in practice.

The most common feedback we heard: "which plan do I need?" Followed by variations of "can I try before I commit?" We had a workaround for the second one (a welcome coupon emailed after signup), but it was a hack, not a real answer. The right answer is a Free tier that lets people actually use the product and decide for themselves.

So we're launching one. And while we were at it, we killed three unnecessary paid tiers and removed topups. This post explains what changed and why.

The new CountHub pricing

Two plans. That's it.

Free

• Price: €0/month, permanently
• Credits: 500 per month, refreshed automatically
• Active countdowns: 1 at a time
• Layouts: basic (horizontal)
• Watermark: small CountHub logo on generated GIFs
• Payment method required: no

Pro

• Price: €29/month, cancel anytime
• Credits: 900,000 per month (fair-use quota, well above real use for a healthy SaaS list)
• Active countdowns: unlimited
• Layouts: all, including vertical mobile and transparent backgrounds
• Watermark: none
• Priority email support

Both plans include the CountHub fundamentals: 8-language support, EU hosting (Scaleway Paris), GDPR compliance out of the box, cookie-free analytics, real-time GIF updates, team sharing on Pro.

What "500 credits per month" gets you

CountHub's credit model: creating a countdown costs 10 credits (one-off per countdown), editing costs 2, and each email view (open) counts as 1 credit. Applied to a realistic Free-tier user:

• Create one countdown (10 credits)
• Send it in a campaign to a 300-person list
• Roughly 30-40% open rate = 90-120 views (90-120 credits)
• Total: ~100-130 credits per campaign

So 500 credits/month is enough for roughly 3-4 real small campaigns per month. If your list is larger, or you run more campaigns, or you use multiple countdowns per campaign, you'll hit the ceiling faster and that's when Pro makes sense. Below that, Free tier works.

What about existing paid customers?

Nothing changes for anyone with an active subscription today. Your current plan stays valid until you cancel or the pricing simplification fully lands (we'll notify subscribers directly before that happens). When it does, you'll be moved to Pro at €29/month, unless you proactively downgrade to Free.

No existing customer is losing features. Every prior tier's core capabilities are in Pro. The only capacity change is that Pro's fair-use quota is 900,000/month rather than the old Enterprise 2,000,000/month. If you were on Enterprise and legitimately used more than 900k/month, contact us at support and we'll set up a custom arrangement.

What about withdrawal rights and refunds?

Under French Consumer Code Article L221-18, you have a 14-day statutory right of withdrawal on your Pro subscription. Exercise it directly from your billing page via a new "Right of withdrawal" function, coming in the next release. In the meantime, contact support and we'll process withdrawal requests manually within the L221-24 14-day statutory timeline.

The Free tier is not a paid contract, so no withdrawal right applies. You can stop using it anytime by simply not logging in, or delete your account from the dashboard to fully remove your data.

How to get started

Sign up free. No credit card. You'll get 500 credits immediately, refreshed automatically on the 1st of each month. Build a real countdown, drop it into a real email campaign, watch it work.

When you outgrow the Free tier (or you just want the watermark gone), upgrade to Pro from your billing page. Cancel anytime. Your 14-day withdrawal right applies.

The philosophy behind this change

SaaS pricing has drifted toward complexity because complexity feels like optionality. Four tiers "give the customer choice." Topups "add flexibility." In practice, that complexity is friction. It slows down the decision, it hides the real cost, and it converts worse than simpler alternatives.

The Free + Pro model is what our best customers actually wanted from us all along: a low-friction way to try the product, and a single fair price when they decide to stay. Everything else was noise.

We'd rather have fewer, clearer plans that people understand than more plans that require a spreadsheet to compare. If Pro at €29 isn't the right price, we'll adjust it. If we discover a real segment we're not serving, we'll add a plan back later. But we're starting with the simplest thing that works, and building up from there only when the evidence demands it.