In general in any SaaS business, the free plan usually is written off as part of marketing budget.
The idea is that instead of paying Google/Facebook to display adds in the hopes that it will convert people as leads and hopefully down the line as a paying customer, it's usually much much cheaper to provide a free plan instead, which helps out as a "trial" of the final product.
Despite the sales factor, it also helps you get real users early on which can provide invaluable feedback to you, and help you prioritize the parts of the software that has real need versus what you imagine that people would want instead.
The idea is that instead of paying Google/Facebook to display adds in the hopes that it will convert people as leads and hopefully down the line as a paying customer, it's usually much much cheaper to provide a free plan instead, which helps out as a "trial" of the final product.
Despite the sales factor, it also helps you get real users early on which can provide invaluable feedback to you, and help you prioritize the parts of the software that has real need versus what you imagine that people would want instead.