Why is Rafflecopter Free?

You’ve asked hundreds of times. Will Rafflecopter be free after it’s publicly available? How can a service like this be free? What’s the catch?

We want to make it clear, everything you see now (and more to be added on as we move forward) will be free. No charge, no questions asked, no hidden catches. But just because it’s free doesn’t mean we slack on things that are important. We should note that we abide by a strict privacy policy. We realize privacy is always a concern; we have best practices in place to protect your personal information.

We want to continue to build and expand our giveaway and sweepstakes applications into a suite of products. The widget that you see now is a great foundation for what we have in store, and we have some really great stuff on the way to make it even awesome-r.

In the future, we might add some business-y features (like advanced analytics and reporting, etc…) and some advanced customization options that we would charge a small amount for under a “freemium” model, meaning you only pay if you want to upgrade. You’re probably familiar with a lot of ‘freemium’ companies: LinkedIn, Flickr, WordPress, Skype, Typepad, & Pandora are all freemium businesses.

Over the past three weeks, we’ve been fortunate to work with many different groups of folks: bloggers, mom and pop shops, entrepreneurs, inventors, social media experts, small businesses, retailers. We hope that we’re building something that is valuable to you and that a truly valuable free version of Rafflecopter combined with great support and customer service will be something you’ll love to be a part of.

Finally, we’re also considering building a community where sponsor companies can meet influential bloggers and publishers and vice versa. Over the last 3-4 months, we’ve had a lot of conversations with bloggers and advertisers alike. We think there’s a better way to connect the two parties yet to be invented and we think we’ve got what it takes to build something special.

If you have any questions for us, feel free to leave a comment or contact us. We’re always here to help!