130 freemium clubs converted to paid. 800 contacted. 6 months.
A Scandinavian team management software company had thousands of sports clubs on their free tier in the DACH market — but converting them to paid subscriptions required structured, high-volume outreach that their internal team couldn't scale. They brought in 8bound.
Thousands of free users. Almost no paid conversions. And a product clubs loved but wouldn't upgrade without a push.
The client had built strong organic adoption across the DACH market — sports clubs were signing up for their free tier, using the product for member management, scheduling and communication, and then staying there. The freemium model was generating usage but not revenue.
Their internal team lacked the bandwidth to reach hundreds of club administrators individually. They needed a structured outreach motion that could work at scale — speaking the language of club treasurers, sports directors and volunteer administrators, not tech buyers.
Phone-first outreach to club admins. Value-led, not pitch-led.
We mapped the freemium user base by club size, sport type and activity level to prioritise accounts most likely to convert — focusing effort on clubs actively using core features but not yet on paid plans.
Club administrators are not typical SaaS buyers. They respond to direct, human conversations — not automated email sequences. Our SDRs led with value, highlighting paid features relevant to each club's specific use case.
Sports clubs run on tight budgets managed by volunteers. We developed specific messaging around ROI for clubs — time saved on admin, better member retention, fewer no-shows — to make the upgrade decision easy.
Full contact and activity logging so the client's team could pick up warm accounts mid-campaign and the outreach effort was fully transparent and reportable.
130 conversions. 16% freemium-to-paid rate. A repeatable upgrade motion.
"We had thousands of clubs on free and no scalable way to convert them. 8bound built the motion, made the calls, and delivered 130 paying accounts in 6 months. The playbook they built is still running."
Freemium users that won't upgrade?
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