The Skype deal is just one example of TrialPlay's ongoing promotions to help services make some money, while hooking new users and advertisers gain customers from trying something new, while paying for something familiar. The company is working with over 1,500 businesses to let users "pay" for their products by participating in an advertisers program, which range from buying the Economist, to trying out anti-wrinkle cream.
While TrialPay CEO Alex Rampell can't say how much Skype is making off their offers, he did say that "for most of our merchants, we are yielding between 10-100% in incremental revenue. A company like Skype might make $80 on a consumer not willing to buy their $8.85 calling plan". He went on to say "Skype now yields significant revenue for Staples.com, because people shop at Staples.com in order to get Skype credits for free". Conceivably, users not willing to buy Skype may be willing to buy enough from Staples to actually generate more revenue than Skype's purchase price. He made no qualifications about how commonly the over-achieving offers occur, though.