Comment by habith | Hacker News Reader

Comment by habith | Hacker News Reader

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I just looked at the pricing page on Gitlab.com and was genuinely interested in trying it out. But the pricing language and structure on the page turned me off instantly.

I thought to myself: "$3.25 per user per month? Sweet! I can throw $6.5 to try it out without the hassle of setting up yet another VM. Charged yearly? Eh, seems to be a bit of a commitment. Oh wait, in multiples of 10? that's $390 upfront with 8 extra licenses for a year!"

Compare that to Digital Ocean's pricing page: https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/

They list the monthly price first but they actually bill hourly. It seems more honest and upfront to tell me what I'm in for.

I understand that you're competitive compared to Github enterprise, but I think that page needs some work to make it more trustworthy and less salesman-pitch-y. Even Github lists that they start from $2500 upfront, not $3.25 + read the fine print.

Best of luck to you and congratulations on the funding.

Edit: And I just noticed that's actually for the on-site EE and that Gitlab.com is free. Oy vey.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. We had yearly prices before but most people expect a price per month (our prices are pretty low so many people assumed our yearly price was our monthly one). I agree that now it is hard to make out the minimum order size, you need to do x10x12. Would it be an improvement if we add '$390 per user pack' to the list of items below the price to save you this calculation? BTW If you want to try it out we do have a money back guaranty.

it would be great if you would change it to something like "monthly subscription" "per user pricing". Which means I could start with 2 users, add 10 and pay for them and maybe then I will kick two in the next month and will pay for 10. Paying on demand is something that I think would be really really good. AWS style.

I understand that need but having smaller tiers that 10 people is inefficient on our side and we would need to raise the price.

Your current pricing model is fine. If someone needs GitLab, they'll pay for it. If they don't pay for it, they don't need it. $30-60/year is cheap, even for a hobbyist project.

I think you may have validated what the OP was saying :-) It's $3.25 per user per month, but the minimum order is 10 users. So the minimum price is $390 per year.

Looks like my math was off. Still agree with Gitlab. Focus on business customers, not hobbyists.

We aren't hobbyists, we are just a small company 5+-1. And sometimes we hire people for a small amount of time, which could exceed 10. So for that time we would need to have a bigger license?!

If you exceed 10 non-blocked users you would need a bigger license. If you can block certain users at certain times you would be able to use 1 user pack (the users are not named).

Thanks for your reply. Price x12 like you said is standard, it's the x10x12 that caught me off guard.

I think some language and price listing adjustments like you suggested would be a great improvement. Even if it's as simple as $32.5 per user pack per month (charged yearly).

I don't think pricing per user pack is what people expect, per user seems to be the more common question.

But you _charge_ per user pack, do you not? Can we purchase 17 licenses? How about 23?

We have around 20 Backblaze licenses that we pay a bit over $1000 per year for. It makes sense for them to advertise the price per user because they charge us that way.

This is akin to Pepsi sticking a huge sign over their 24 pack at the department store saying "NOW ONLY 99 CENTS PER CAN!" minimum 24, in increments of 24.

Anyway, like I said, the way the pricing is advertised turned an interested/potential customer away.

I've put the user pack price at the text below the pricing so it is clear from the start https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/commit/7e6b6f87...

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