免費增值

免費增值（英語：Freemium），是一種應用於專有軟體（通常是像軟體、多媒體、遊戲或Web服務等數字產品）的一種商業模式，它提供長時間的免費使用，但其中的一些先進的特性、功能或虛擬物品則需要付費。^[1]^[2]該英文單詞「freemium」是一個混合型新詞，來源於「free」（免費）和「premium」（額外費用）。通常情況下這種產品本身免費供人下載，一般情況下也不會被標示為「免費軟體」，因為想要體驗完整的產品仍然是需要付費購買的（俗稱內購），不過僅提供付錢去除廣告的則不在此限。^{[來源請求]}

起源

在20世紀80年代時期興起了一種製作共享軟體的商業模式，不同於通過磁碟或者CD-ROM安裝的軟體，該軟體常常限定使用時間或者功能受限，除非你付費獲得一個序列號。此種軟體的商業模式特別適用於一些成本較低的軟體，而且較少造成使用者的流失——除非被競爭者蠶食了市場。

然而，這個專有詞語出現在該模式的很久之後，在2006年由風險資本家弗雷德·威爾遜（英語：Fred Wilson (financier)）總結了這種商業模式：^[3]

Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base.
（為你提供的服務是免費的，可以有廣告也可以沒有，藉由口口相傳、推廣網絡、搜尋引擎營銷等非常有效地得到大量客戶，然後提供給客戶以高價增值服務或該軟體的增強版本。）

Alacra（英語：Alacra）的Jarid Lukin把這種模式稱作「freemium」。^[3]

在2009年，克里斯·安德森出版了一本叫做《免費：未來的極端價格（英語：Free: the future of a radical price）》的書，它解釋了這種商業模式的普及。同樣，它現在也經常被Web 2.0和開源公司所使用。^[4]

參考文獻

^ JLM de la Iglesia, JEL Gayo, "《Doing business by selling free services（靠賣免費服務做生意）》". Web 2.0: The Business Model, 2008. Springer
^ Tom Hayes, "《Jump Point: How Network Culture is Revolutionizing Business（網絡文化是如何展開革命化的）》". 2008. Page 195.
^ ^3.0 ^3.1 My Favorite Business Model（我最喜欢的商业模式）. Musings of a VC in NYC. AVC. 2006-03-23 [2012-08-13]. （原始內容存檔於2014-02-04）. Free + Premium = Freemium?
^ Heires, Katherine. Why It Pays to Give Away the Store. CNN Money. Business 2.0 Magazine. 2006-10-01 [2012-08-13]. （原始內容存檔於2015-06-19）. But free didn't become a serious option until the Internet gave us low-cost online distribution. Adobe (Charts) did it with its PDF Reader in 1994, Macromedia with its Shockwave Player in 1995. Both became the industry standard, and those companies were able to make money by selling the products' authoring software. Running starts: Companies like Six Apart and MySQL are following the example of MySpace and Skype by offering a free basic product and charging for premium service. More from Business 2.0 Live chat: your new online salesperson The hijack-proof truck Server farm goes solar Fastest Growing Tech Companies Current Issue Subscribe to Fortune In these days of Web 2.0 services that rely on quick customer adoption, the strategy has become so common that VCs have coined a term for it: freemium.

延伸閱讀

Bruce Sterling. Blogging for Dollars. wired.com. 2006年6月 [2011年12月7日]. （原始內容存檔於2013年11月10日）.
克里斯·安德森。免費：未來的極端價格（英語：Free: the future of a radical price）. 1st ed. Hyperion; 2009年6月24日. ISBN 978-1-4013-2290-8.

參見

[1] JLM de la Iglesia, JEL Gayo, "《Doing business by selling free services（靠賣免費服務做生意）》". Web 2.0: The Business Model, 2008. Springer

[2] Tom Hayes, "《Jump Point: How Network Culture is Revolutionizing Business（網絡文化是如何展開革命化的）》". 2008. Page 195.

[avc_fav_bus_model-3] 3.0 ^3.1 My Favorite Business Model（我最喜欢的商业模式）. Musings of a VC in NYC. AVC. 2006-03-23 [2012-08-13]. （原始內容存檔於2014-02-04）. Free + Premium = Freemium?

[cnn_business_model-4] Heires, Katherine. Why It Pays to Give Away the Store. CNN Money. Business 2.0 Magazine. 2006-10-01 [2012-08-13]. （原始內容存檔於2015-06-19）. But free didn't become a serious option until the Internet gave us low-cost online distribution. Adobe (Charts) did it with its PDF Reader in 1994, Macromedia with its Shockwave Player in 1995. Both became the industry standard, and those companies were able to make money by selling the products' authoring software. Running starts: Companies like Six Apart and MySQL are following the example of MySpace and Skype by offering a free basic product and charging for premium service. More from Business 2.0 Live chat: your new online salesperson The hijack-proof truck Server farm goes solar Fastest Growing Tech Companies Current Issue Subscribe to Fortune In these days of Web 2.0 services that rely on quick customer adoption, the strategy has become so common that VCs have coined a term for it: freemium.

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