I’m sure you’ve seen one–a landing page touting a FREE CD then when you click through to sign up it asks for your credit card because… surprise!… there’s a charge for shipping and handling.

Now I don’t have a problem with the concept–it’s actually a good one that I may try soon myself. And I don’t mind paying the shipping & handling (S&H). In fact, it’s more surprising to me when I don’t have to pay it.

Most people though don’t haunt the halls of the Internet as much as I do. And they ARE going to be surprised. So you should play it straight and make it clear on the first page that you mean free + S&H.

But today I got an email from Ryan Deiss that takes the cake…

“It’s only $97, and it’ll help you grow your email subscriber list for free.”

Um, when did $97 start equaling free?!

My first guess was that once you pay the $97, you don’t have to pay anything or anyone else to actually follow-through on the program.

But that’s not the case, because it shows you how to outsource your list building–and obviously the person you outsource to isn’t going to accept Cracker Jacks as payment.

So I’m baffled.

Ryan seems to be a straightforward kind of guy, so I’m pretty sure he’s not trying to fake anyone out here.

But more and more the new math around “free” just isn’t adding up.

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