Open your admin dashboard and look at the last 30 days. How many new members joined? And how many went from free trial to paying? If the answer is zero, switch back to free today. Here's why, in plain terms. Charging doesn't create demand. It filters it. A paid gate only works when enough people are already arriving, and enough of them already trust you, that some of them will pay to get through. The price catches people who were coming anyway. If nobody is coming through, the gate isn't filtering anything. It's just a wall. And a wall in front of an empty street tells you nothing about whether people would pay. So zero joins after going paid doesn't mean "paid doesn't work for me". It means you've got two problems the paywall is now hiding: → Traffic. Not enough people are finding the community in the first place. → Conversion. The ones who do find it aren't convinced enough to commit. Neither gets fixed behind a paywall. Both get fixed in the open, where people can walk in, see the value, and tell you what's missing. The rule I'd use: Stay paid only if it's converting. If it isn't, go back to free, fix traffic and conversion, and put the price back on once people are queuing at the door. What did your last 30 days show?