This study uses mix-methods to examine SaaS freemium strategy at two levels: free using and premium paying. We conducted a two-wave of survey by first designing open-ended questions to explore respondents’ SaaS free using or purchasing experience to perform a text mining analysis in order to find new factors that are unique to the SaaS freemium context. In the second wave, we collected numerical data from SaaS users to validate the findings from the text mining results. We found that factors attracting initial free use are different from those attracting paying use, suggesting that the well-known theoretically argued factors though in the early free use phase are still important, they are merely threshold factors in determining users’ paying behavior. Our mix-methods investigation found that in the paying use stage, the three SaaS facilitating conditions are more important (safety, transaction efficiency, alternatives) than the threshold factors proposed by existing studies.