We have about 5 devs, but the bulk of our GitLab users are non-technical (sales, customer support, etc.) who probably do not even know what git is. Those users are lurkers, but their input can be valuable and if possible I'd like them to be able to login onto GitLab.
Getting billed $228/users/year upfront is a harsh blow. I don't think I will ever be able to justify such cost to our CEO.
The way I see it now, we will renew our Bronze plan during the one-year grace period, while we are preparing the transition to another tool. Hopefully, we never really integrated our processes too much with GitLab, so we can transition whenever we need to.
If the "per user" subscription is to be that expensive, then I would suggest GitLab to provide a monthly subscription and/or a "per committer" subscription instead of a "per user" subscription.