mkarampalas

Hi Operyl, GitLab PM here. Thanks for the feedback on What's New. As you point out, it looks like we have some opportunity for refinement and better/clearer messaging for folks that update right away to the .0 release. I've opened up this issue to track that work and welcome your feedback or ideas there. Thank you! https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/325591

I am a product manager at GitLab and my focus is on making renewals as easy and pain-free as possible for customers. I am very sorry that you had such a confusing and frustrating experience here. We are working on a number of issues that will improve this process, including:

* Making Gitlab.com aware of who the payment owner is so we can more accurately target the renewal banner - https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/growth/product/-/issues/1551

* Updating the renewal banner copy for group owners that aren't payment owners so they don't attempt to renew if they do not have the right permissions - https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/growth/product/-/issues/1553

* Moving the renewal behavior from the customers portal into Gitlab.com so payment owners can more easily manage their subscription and renewal - https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/growth/product/-/issues/1528

* Adjusting how we do "true-ups" so they are done quarterly and pro-rated to the end of the subscription instead of in arrears - https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/customers-gitlab-com/-/issues/...

I would love to chat with you to learn more about the challenges you experienced and to review some of our plans to make things better if you're up for it. You can reach me directly at mkarampalas[at]gitlab.com