Asking for credit card to join your product's free trial can badly hurt your conversion rate. But if you really want to do it, the must do it the right way.

By implementing a survey on the page where visitors could sign up for a free trial, CrazyEgg found that they were reluctant to put in a credit-card number.

They did not know why the service required their credit card for a free trial.

They were scared that they would be charged.

Here is what they did:

1. Showed the question “Why do you need my credit card for a free trial?” right on the checkout page with an answer: “To prevent multiple free trials for one person”.
2. Added an explanation: “Nothing will be billed for 30 days. You can cancel at any time.”
3. Added a list of companies that use their product
4. Changed the Order Total from “$49 per month” to “$0 for 30 days” + “after 30 days: $49 per month.”

These modifications increased their free trial sign-ups with credit cards by 116%.

If you really want to ask credit card to users willing to join your free trial, make sure to raise all the objections they could have on the checkout page.