What pricing model should we use to offer discounted trials so leads can see the benefits, without devaluing our offering or discouraging long plans?

Questions you should think about (assuming you have existing customers)

* Can you run these case-studies past your existing customers' buyers to see what you're missing? Basically why is a use-case, whitepaper not convincing enough?
* Can you get prospects to talk to existing customers or do a walk through of an existing installation? This is very key in high ticket sales, esp where you are making big claims.
* Can you get video testimonials, including walk-throughs of the installs?

On the pricing model for the trial
* How good/measurable is the RoI? If it's very measurable, can you put in a pricing model which goes up if they make/save more money?
* How fast is the RoI? Will they get an indicator in days/months/years? Your strategy will change based on the period
* What is the install cost? To me more than the monthly recurring, the install cost might be a bigger barrier. Can you fold that into the recurring for a few customers?
* Can you offer a 100% refund if unsatisfied after trial?

To me this sounds less like a pricing issue, and much more like a sales/pre-sales issue. I have done technical pre-sales, sales & mktg, and can help with thinking through this problem over a call.

As someone who offers membership based services I've had great success with two models. The 35% off model does really well, they receive a discount and you still get paid. But by far the best results came from a model where I offered a complete month totally free. The key to the last model is communication, encouraging them to stay on through email marketing and follow up phone calls to see how their doing.

I agree that this isn't really a pricing problem (more value proposition, sales, etc), but pricing may help fix the challenge. There's not enough information provided to give definite answers, but I would suggest a) offering a choice of pricing models (outright purchase & rental immediately spring to mind) b) offering choices within those choices, where applicable (e.g. 12 / 24 / 36 math rentals) and c) creating a decoy product (like the $A24k Apple watch). If someone buys it, great, if not, it makes every other product look great value).
Happy to chat further on this