Should you say your product is in beta in the website or not?

Question

In our website we clearly state that we are in beta testing phase and that we're looking for beta testers.I was convinced that being clear on this was good. But three times already other people have told me to, at the very least, hide it a bit as it will scare away potential users.So, I'm confused. Should I just stick to a "try it for free" msg (as in fact, as of today, you cannot yet buy the product) instead of saying we're beta testing?

armchairhacker · Accepted Answer

I wouldn&rsquo;t say &ldquo;beta&rdquo; unless your software is really buggy and subject to change. Then I would make that really clear (&ldquo;our software is incomplete and unstable&rdquo;) and accept that I&rsquo;m going to have less users.You could also say version 0.x, which isn&rsquo;t very noticeable.&ldquo;Beta&rdquo; has kind of lost its meaning, since plenty of really buggy software has been released for a long time, and plenty of amazing software is still in beta or 0.x because the developers want it to be absolutely perfect.

t3e · Answer

We're deliberating this ourselves. Our investors strongly advocate removing the "beta" because our product is solid and complete (in fact pretty polished at this point) and we're doing ourselves no favors. I think they're right. To me the question is simply: what's more accurate? We were honestly in beta 8 months ago; at some point we just had customers happily using a product we're progressively making better.

greenyoda · Answer

I think that being up-front about the product being in beta is better.If I "try it for free" and see a product that's not good enough for release, I'll give up and never come back again. If I know your product is in beta, I could see myself signing up to get notified when the product is officially released.