How to stop free plan abuse in a freemium SaaS
Freemium works until one person runs ten free accounts. How to stop free plan abuse and multiple free accounts without making your free plan worse for real users.
A free-forever plan is a bet: give real value away, and enough people will love it to pay for more. It's a good bet, until one person opens ten free accounts and gets ten times the free plan. Then you're paying to serve a power user who never needs to upgrade, because your limits only apply to one account at a time.
Free plan abuse is the quietest kind of multi-accounting. Nothing spikes on day one. It builds month after month, as free accounts multiply and the upgrade you designed never happens. And when it does spike, it spikes hard:
From our early beta
Fake users drained one team's shared model provider quota. Their paying customers couldn't use the product until the team raised its budget to cover the abuse.
What's fair use and what's abuse
Getting this distinction right is the whole game.
| Fair use | Abuse |
|---|---|
| One person using their free account every day, for as long as they like | One person running several free accounts to get several free allowances |
| A team sharing one free workspace | A team opening a second free workspace when the first hits its limit |
| Someone coming back to the free plan after a year away | Someone cycling through new accounts to reset a monthly limit |
Legitimate ongoing use of the original free account is exactly what freemium is for. The abuse is creating additional accounts to get more free entitlements than your plan allows.
Where to check
- When the free plan is activated. This is the main benefit. Eligibility once per user. See setting trial eligibility.
- When a monthly allowance refills, if your free plan includes one. Make it a second benefit, once per calendar month, so extra accounts can't multiply it.
- When a free workspace or team is created, if your free plan is per team. Send a company or workspace ID as a custom identifier.
Ongoing use inside an account isn't something AbuseZero meters. Your app keeps enforcing the free plan's limits as it does today. AbuseZero decides who receives the free plan in the first place.
Turn a denial into an upgrade
A person who wants a second free account has already told you they need more than the free plan. That's your best upgrade lead:
This account isn't eligible for another free plan. Upgrade to keep going.
Keep the message neutral, never explain what was detected, and give real users who were caught by mistake a way to reach you. More in multi-accounting detection without blocking real users.
Keep your free plan generous
Protection lets you give a free plan worth loving, because one person can't multiply it. Start with Builder or see pricing.
The playbook at a glance
| Decision | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Benefit | The free plan, claimed at activation |
| Eligibility | Once per user, or per team with a workspace identifier |
| Monthly allowance | A second benefit, once per calendar month |
| Protection level | Balanced for most products; Strict when free usage carries real compute cost |
| Identifiers | Email, IP address, device token, and your own identifiers |
| History | Import your existing free accounts before you protect |
| On deny | Offer a paid plan |
| Rollout | Observe first, then protect. See shadow mode for abuse rules |
How AbuseZero decides
Every free plan claim is checked against your workspace's full claim history across every identifier you send, so a new email doesn't mean a clean slate. The AbuseZero AI Risk Engine reads the signals together, with a proprietary algorithm built on 140,000+ risk signal combinations, and AbuseZero returns allow or deny with a readable reason. You choose the protection level and add your own rules and lists.
Frequently asked questions
How do I stop users creating multiple free accounts?
Evaluate the free plan claim when the plan is activated, with an eligibility of once per user. AbuseZero checks the claim against everyone who already received the free plan, across new emails, devices and networks.
Does AbuseZero limit usage on the free plan?
No. Your app keeps enforcing free plan limits. AbuseZero decides whether a new account should receive the free plan at all.
Can a team share one free plan?
Yes. Protect the free plan per team by sending a company or workspace ID as a custom identifier. Teammates join the existing workspace, and a second free workspace for the same company is checked against the first.
Will protection hurt my free plan's growth?
It's aimed at duplicate accounts, not real users, and you stay in control of how strict it is. Start in observe mode to see exactly what would be denied before anyone is affected.
Protect your free plan
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Builder, Pro, Scale and Enterprise.
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Large free tiers and custom terms.