Gitlab reshuffles its paid subscription plans, drops its Bronze/Starter tier

Fantastic. Who cares about customers who helped them build the features they now think are irreplaceable? The exit-only culture of these startups are simply laughable.

Time to switch all my gitlab accounts out to github, or some other provider with some sense of customer empathy.

I just got this email:

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Effective January 26, 2021, GitLab has phased out the GitLab Bronze/Starter subscription tier.

Current Bronze/Starter customers have over a year to transition Transition discount offers are available to current customers Over the last few years, GitLab has evolved into a complete DevOps platform. Many Bronze/Starter customers adopted GitLab just for source code management (SCM) or continuous integration (CI), but GitLab is now a robust DevOps platform that can replace entire toolchains. GitLab customers are achieving faster releases, lower toolchain costs and more productive developers.

The Bronze/Starter tier does not meet the hurdle rate that GitLab expects from a tier and is limiting us from investing to improve GitLab for all customers. Ending availability of the Bronze/Starter tier will help us accelerate development on customers’ priority needs such as improving usability, availability and performance, and making sure that security and compliance are enterprise-grade.

We understand that this change could be disruptive for our current Bronze/Starter customers, which is why GitLab is offering transition options and price discounts to ease your transition to Premium over the next three years.

All Bronze/Starter customers can choose a free upgrade to GitLab Premium for the remainder of their subscription for the first 25 users. At your next renewal before January 26, 2022, all Bronze/Starter tier customers can choose to Either renew at the Bronze/Starter tier for US$ 4 per user per month for one additional year Or opt in for discounted GitLab Premium prices for the next three years. For customers with 25 users or less, your discounted transition prices (paid annually) are US$ 6, US$ 9, US$ 15 per user per month for your first, second and third renewals respectively. To claim this offer, please visit the GitLab Customer Portal.

To learn more about this change, watch this video [http://youtu.be/zG9d1y2jE14], visit our customer FAQ or contact GitLab Sales.

To address your questions and feedback, we have created a space in the GitLab Community Forum, which is actively monitored by GitLab Team members involved with this change.

Thank you for the trust you place in GitLab to help you deliver software faster and more efficiently. We appreciate your use of GitLab and look forward to delivering more value to you every month.