When a shortlist comes down to two strong candidates, teams reach for a hands-on test. The instinct is to grab the free trial -- it is free, after all. But free and useful are not the same thing, and the structured paid pilot is often the cheaper option once you count wasted time.
What a free trial is good for
A free trial answers shallow questions quickly. Is the interface tolerable? Does onboarding insult your intelligence? Does a basic workflow feel fast or sluggish? Those are real questions, and a fourteen-day trial answers them well.
- Low commitment, instant access, no procurement paperwork.
- Good for ruling a product out on feel alone.
- Weak at proving a product belongs in your stack.
Where free trials fall short
Trials run on a clock and on sample data. Nobody migrates real records for a two-week test, so you never see the integration that matters, the data volume that matters, or the support team that matters. The trial ends, the calendar moves on, and you decide on vibes.
What a paid pilot buys you
A paid pilot is a short, scoped engagement -- typically thirty to sixty days -- with a written success definition agreed on by both sides. Because money has changed hands, the vendor assigns real onboarding support and you justify the effort of loading real data.
A pilot without a written success metric is just a long trial with an invoice attached.
- Define two or three measurable outcomes before it starts.
- Use production data and at least one live integration.
- Negotiate that the pilot fee credits toward the first year if you buy.
How to choose between them
Use a free trial to break a tie of taste -- when both products might work and you want to feel the difference. Use a paid pilot to break a tie of consequence -- when the tool will touch core operations and a wrong choice is expensive to unwind.
The bottom line
Free trials are cheap to start and expensive to rely on. For a low-stakes tool, the trial is plenty. For a system your team will live inside for years, a paid pilot is the least expensive insurance you will ever buy.