is it possible to do well as a "free" player?

I'm also lvl 27, never spent any cash. I have a very nice Lapras (hatched) and a pretty good Snorlax (caught on vacation), both my only ones. Only ever seen (and caught) one Dratini though, and that was also while on vacation. There are zero anywhere near my area. [All the gyms around me are always crammed full with spoofed Dragonites, but my Lapras is happy to slice through them.]

Im level 29 free player with some Snorlax (hatched) and a dragonite (dratini buddy during Halloween evento) Also I have some other good Mons. I get coins everyday in Gyms, coins ive spent on incubators and storage.

I'm level 31 and haven't spent anything on PoGo. One Lapras that I hatched (just a few weeks ago), six Snorlax (one hatched, 5 caught) and four Dragonites.

I'm lucky to be in a fairly urban area and I walk each day at lunch around a lake that has a lot of Magikarp. I probably catch a bit under a dratini a day (used to be better before when spawns were better for me).

It's tough and takes patience, but it's doable. Of course there are plenty of players in my area who are higher level (as high as 35) with I'm sure much better 'mons, but I'm happy enough.

I'm a free player also, and am level 34. I've found a lapras, but it didn't have good moves. I believe I've found seven Snorlax in the wild, five of which I still have. The new radar may make finding additional Snorlaxes harder than before. I don't have a dragonite yet, but have 59 dratini candy, so I'll get one eventually. I have an attacking and a defending exeggutor, and a fully powered up venusaur. I feel like I'm doing pretty well with the game, despite not spending money. I do get coins from gyms, and enjoy using those as my only source of in-game coins. I think it gives me more of a feeling of progression than if I bought them.

I tried to do it free for a few levels, but gave in and started buying incubators periodically. I've never seen a wild Snorlax or Lapras (lv32) or a few other Pokes. I suspect it depends on where you live - some areas seem to have a greater diversity of Pokes than others.

Yes, Incubators make the game much easyer. They give high-iv-pokemon and stardust.

It depends on the region where you live and your team. If you can harvest 5 to 10 gyms each day, you can afford permanent 2-3 blue incubators with your ingame-money. Buy one in two days, hatch 5 km per day, this way round.

My wife is in about the same situation as you are - never spent money and level 28 now. She has one 50%-IV-Snorlax, one 80%-IV-Dragonite, no lapras, one good exeggutor, now collecting candies for it.
She also has a big gyarados and some vaporeon, flareon and jolteon and can attack almost every gym. Her defenders are kind of weak, some 2000+ vaporeon, 1800+ slowbro, 1800+ poliwrath, it is just ok. She can get her coins every day and enjoys the game.

Same level, but with two lapras. Caught and hatched at low level (~19-20). Used my candies to bring one to 2.1k and was my best for a while. Now it is lower than any vaporeon that I get when grinding xp and is becoming less and less powerfull.
I won't get any of the other top pokemons any time soon, but I'm in no hurry to finish the pokedex, so it doesn't really matter to me.

With a team of vaps/jolteon/cloyster you can down any gym without any trouble, so no real disadvantage on attack compared to p2w/cheaters on that side.

It is harder to get top defenders, but I think it doesn't change much to the number of gyms you can hold.

Getting ~5 arena a day = one incubator every 3 day, or 1 5km egg a day. That's more that what I'm going to walk during winter anyway.

You can do "well", but don't expect to compete with those spending money (and even less with those cheating).

I had caught a snorlax with a high IV, but pretty low level.

What do you define as "doing well". I haven't spent any money on the actual game, the only thing I've bought for the game is a power bank.

I don't have super amazing Pokemon, but I'm happy with what I've been lucky enough to get. No Snorlax, only a level 14 Dragonite from the wild, although enough to evolve a Dratini through walking that Dragonite as a buddy, caught a level 10 Lapras during the double XP event which is now my buddy, recently caught a level 27 Arcanine (FF/BD), don't have Exeggutor but enough to evolve into one, and I'm still able to take down gyms fine despite having suboptimal and not fully powered Pokemon.

I wouldn't say I'm doing super well, but the game is by no means unplayable for those that don't pay money. The closest thing you can get to calling it P2W is buying incubators and constantly having 9 running at once to up your odds of getting good stuff, but that's small when you look at actual P2W games.

I'm lv 34 a freemium too. I have alot of good iv mon 3 87+iv Dragonite and a perfect one and alot of 91+iv mon. I hatched 2 Lapras when I was lv 30 and a Snorlax but no Dratini so far. If you can collect 80+ coin everyday you will never need to buy incubator with real money. Everything is doing great for me.

I don't judge the people that put some money on this game. You can spend even more going to the movies, training at the gym, or buying expensive wine.
However i'm proud that i haven't spent any money on PokemonGo and i still manage to have a pretty decent roster. I'm level 32.
I live in the city and since the gym update there's no way to hold a gym for too long. Occasionally we manage to hold one around 8 - 10 for a couple of days.With that i can barely get 30 to 50 coins every day, but is good enough.
And in my PokeDex only the regionals are missing (Farfetch'd, Kangaskhan and Tauros)

Yes it is possible to do well as a free player.

I'm in about the same boat as you. Level 27, no Lapras, Snorlax, or Dragonite. I do have Eggs but honestly I never use them for attack.

Thing is... you don't actually need any of them to play the game. Despite not having any of those, I've never really had trouble beating anything I've found in a gym. Sure, I maybe can't hold gyms as well as people who have fleets of Snorlax, but I still (usually) get 20 coins per day and I'm good with that.

I always find it a bit hard to define what a completely "free" player is. If you have ever caught anything in a lure placed by another person who has paid for that lure you immediately stop being a totally "free" player in my view. So completely "free" would be hard to do. I bought some incubators in the first few months of playing (not that many) and have been lucky enough to be in 10 gyms nearly every day for the last three month or so. Since then it has certainly gone a lot faster. But I still had to wait until level 29 to hatch my first Snorlax and until level 30 to hatch my first Lapras. My niece got a Lapras from her very first 10k egg and a Snorlax from her third one. So there is a lot of luck involved too. After waiting so long for a Snorlax I caught another 3 just in my tiny little village. And last week I encountered a wild Lapras for the very first time ever. It ran....
So there is hope I would say, it might just take a little longer.

It is certainly possible. I know many players who haven't spent anything on the game and they still have similar roster to mine. Remember that it's not guaranteed that you would have caught those even if you had spent money on the game. I admire players who are able to play without spending any money on the game. Only thing is that you will be hatching less eggs, doesn't mean there's anything good in them, just increases your chances.

The chances and getting a lapras or snorlax are very slim even with 9 eggs going all the time.

Honestly the reason I incubate constantly, it makes the game so much more fun. I had 1-2 going until around level 20 something then I switched to 9. There's always something to look forward to. Will it be exactly what you need? Will it be a perfect? Oh well, at least you get a lot of dust if it's not.

Why not drop 25 bucks on the game as a gift for yourself this Christmas?

I'm also a "free" player, Lvl 35. Got my first Lapras when I was Lvl 30, now I have four. Two of my five Snorlax are from eggs, but no other strong or rare mons. I see eggs mostly as bonus candy, wouldn't spend any real money for incubators and use the ones bought with coins from the gyms only for the occasional 10 km egg (Just to get another Onyx or something).

Lv 36 free player. Save ur pokecoins and candies for events. Use them all during events to maximize their value. Also maybe take up running. I started doing that to hatch eggs.

I'm a level 33 free player who has never spent any real money on pokecoins. I live in the suburbs of a second-tier USA metro area. I started playing July 14, but became more serious in early August, at about level 21. I collect on an average of 7-8 gyms per day, so I collect approximately 500 free pokecoins per week. Until recently, I only spent pokecoins on an incubator if I had one or more 10km eggs to hatch, and I only used the 3-use incubators for 10km eggs. I usually have only had 1-2 incubators (including the infinite one) going at once. Now that I have fully upgraded my item bag (1,000 items) and have all the pokemon storage I need (500), and a stash of lucky eggs, I am starting to occasionally buy incubators to hatch 5km eggs.

Also, there is a downtown area nearby where I have a loop I can drive slowly, and hit about 20 pokestops in less than ten minutes if I don't stop to catch pokemon. By the time I finish the loop, the pokestops have refreshed, and I can repeat the loop. I usually do this late at night, when there is very little other traffic.

I have 5 Snorlaxes, all caught wild, and 4 Laprases (one caught wild, three hatched). Dratinis aren't too rare where I live (they even spawn at my house a few times per week), so I have managed to evolve one Dragonite and power it up to level 31. I've also caught 2 wild Porygons plus hatched one, and stumbled onto nests at various times with Abras, Kabutos, Bulbasaurs, Omanytes, etc. I have also caught both an Omastar and a Kabutops in the wild, plus a Hitmonchan (also hatched one).

I am missing five pokemon from my pokedex, not including the region exclusives: Charizard, Machamp, Primeape, Chansey, and Hitmonlee. I only need one more Mankey to evolve a Primeape, and I have about 90 Machop candies. I have a long way to go on Charizard, because Charmanders are rare here, and I lost patience and evolved a Charmeleon when I had 25 candies.

To me, there are two different games, the free game and the pay game. I enjoy the challenge of the free game. I don't hatch as many eggs as other players, but I much prefer catching pokemon in the wild anyway. It helps a lot that I have easy access to pokestops, and that I am able to collect approximately 500 pokecoins per week from holding gyms.

Keep plugging away. I'm almost level 31 and I found that I'm getting more and more better pokemon lately. We don't have a ton of gyms here but enough that I try to get 5 a day. So that is one incubator every 3 days.

I only ever spent money during the Halloween event on incubators for double candies (walking a TON and hatching eggs). I said I would never spend money on this game but that event I broke down. Maybe spent $35? Now I'm back to the regular grind again.

I still don't have a Lapras or Dragonite. We have barely any water here so have only ever found 1 Dratini and hatched 1. Maybe by level 35 I might finally get my first dragonite. Seems everyone else in town is getting them.

Just keep grinding. It will happen eventually. For me I don't worry about things and just keep plugging away. No expectations on leveling or getting certain pokemon.

Spending money essentially buys you time. If you can average 6-10 gyms a day, then spending 20USD buys you a month of gym rewards. How much is a month of gym grinding worth to you?

I'm a level 31 free player in an urban (work)/suburban(home) area. I have two max pokemon (Venasaur and Tauros), 3 93+ IV Vaporeon, half a dozen other 93+ IV pokemon (some being much more helpful post CP update [i.e., Tangela]), and another half dozen of 2000+ pokemon with 82+ IVs (Gengar, arcanine, near max jolteon). Unfortunately, I have no Lapras or Snorlax (last 6 eggs were Magmars, Scythers, and Jynxs), but I'm currently walking with a 89 IV dragonair.

I feel that I'm doing pretty well despite not spending money because of the amount of gyms in my area. I have about 4 on my walk between home and public transportation, and another 2 by my office. My strategy is to take over all the gyms on my walk in a single go, which is relatively easy and quick considering I have a deep bench, and then I have plenty of coins for expanding my pokedex or bag plus incubators. I have trouble holding gyms because of stiff competition, and there is usually a lot of turnover.

Bottom line - I'm slightly frustrated as the only 30+ level player in my area without a snorlax, dragonite or a lapras, but I have enough gyms and a deep enough roster of mons so that my lack of tier 1 mons doesn't impede my progress.

Hi,
I'm as well a free player, lvl 34.
Lapras : hatched 2 (80% and 91%), caught 10
Snorlax : hatched 1 (84%), caught 7
Dragonite : hatched 2 dratinis (91% and 93%), caught 50+ dratinis.
I got 200+ exegcute candies (and some Exegcutors), a lot of Vaporeons 89%+ (two 100%), more than enough candies...
It's a question of how much you play I think (and a little bit of luck). I guess that I can say I walk a lot (1300+ km), but still don't have the egg's medal.
Time to time I buy incubators with the coins from the gyms.
BUT I live in the city. However, it's in Brussels, so there's a lot less than in cities like London, New York, Paris, Rome...

I was a "free" player until level 28 then once I got into the community, met a lot of other serious trainers, I realized that actually it is not free at all...

Collecting coins from gym, in the big city (aka Bangkok), actually cost more money than buying them. When there are many trainers around that constantly tear down the gym that you just claimed, you need to spend a lot of time and effort to try to earn even a few coins/day.

Time = Money

Gas to rush to the next gym also cost money. Try running to claim 10 gyms...

Once I realized that, I just started to buy coins and since then in less than a month I hatched 2 Lapras, 1 Snorlax and many others to finally completed my local Dex. I do not spend lots of time to fight gyms as they are now only for fun, not for coins. I just concentrated on "Catch Them All".

Yes, it is possible to do well as a "free" player when you define "free" as not spending real money in the game. But it will end up costing you more anyway.