4 ms·

Seems like there’s a large opportunity here if the pricing could be just a little more nuanced. Charging by code committers maybe make more sense…

prepend 4y ago
I talked to them a few years ago but they weren’t able to change their license. I guess there are orgs that pay $1000/user just for PMs to approve merges and stuff. We went with GitHub over it and it’s kind of a shame because GitLab has so many great features. I can’t bring myself to pay for 1000 seats so 50 developers can use GitLab. Not to mention for pages viewers where there’s probably 2-5k who view project docs and stuff. Paying for users to log in and view web sites is pretty crazy.
- hardwaresofton 4y ago
  Yeah it's an interesting problem, because those PMs are contributors in some sense, but just on a much lower scale, and single pricing doesn't really reflect that. As far as running the service goes, they do represent non-zero cost (they're going to be looking through stuff, triggering async jobs maybe, maintaining Gitlab pages setups, etc. They also represent possibly increased security burden (though I don't think anyone is pricing risk like that in the SaaS world just yet). If you don't mind me asking, what price would you happily pay for non technical contributors? Would you want a percentage of the developer/"full contributor" rate? Or do you have a specific number that would be reasonable in your opinion?
  - prepend 4y ago
    I understand they do something, but it’s probably 1/1000th the time spent as a developer. I don’t have a specific number, but I’d prefer to just be charged for developers and have non-dev be free since their marginal cost is so low. Same for “system accounts” and whatnot. The key metric should be how many developers are using so there’s not much profit in adding more users other than it makes the devs happy. If it has to be a non-zero amount then maybe $1/year or something. I have 25,000 people in my org so that’s still a lot of money even though there’s maybe only 100-200 actual devs.
    - hardwaresofton 4y ago
      Appreciate you taking the time to respond! I have a bunch of stuff going right now but hosting Gitlab has been on my mind for a while (I already run a service that focuses on hosting the runners)... Wondering if there's more space in this niche simply by listening to what customers here on HN and elsewhere have been saying.
      - apple4ever 4y ago
        No, they won't listen. People have been asking for it for years. Its a big reason we don't pay for GitLab. And will be one of the reasons we will switch to GitHub (which is sad)
apple4ever 4y ago
There absolutely is, but they do not want to hear it. They like their pricing, even if it makes no sense and is worse for them as a company.

prepend 4y ago

I talked to them a few years ago but they weren’t able to change their license. I guess there are orgs that pay $1000/user just for PMs to approve merges and stuff. We went with GitHub over it and it’s kind of a shame because GitLab has so many great features. I can’t bring myself to pay for 1000 seats so 50 developers can use GitLab. Not to mention for pages viewers where there’s probably 2-5k who view project docs and stuff. Paying for users to log in and view web sites is pretty crazy.

hardwaresofton 4y ago
Yeah it's an interesting problem, because those PMs are contributors in some sense, but just on a much lower scale, and single pricing doesn't really reflect that. As far as running the service goes, they do represent non-zero cost (they're going to be looking through stuff, triggering async jobs maybe, maintaining Gitlab pages setups, etc. They also represent possibly increased security burden (though I don't think anyone is pricing risk like that in the SaaS world just yet). If you don't mind me asking, what price would you happily pay for non technical contributors? Would you want a percentage of the developer/"full contributor" rate? Or do you have a specific number that would be reasonable in your opinion?
- prepend 4y ago
  I understand they do something, but it’s probably 1/1000th the time spent as a developer. I don’t have a specific number, but I’d prefer to just be charged for developers and have non-dev be free since their marginal cost is so low. Same for “system accounts” and whatnot. The key metric should be how many developers are using so there’s not much profit in adding more users other than it makes the devs happy. If it has to be a non-zero amount then maybe $1/year or something. I have 25,000 people in my org so that’s still a lot of money even though there’s maybe only 100-200 actual devs.
  - hardwaresofton 4y ago
    Appreciate you taking the time to respond! I have a bunch of stuff going right now but hosting Gitlab has been on my mind for a while (I already run a service that focuses on hosting the runners)... Wondering if there's more space in this niche simply by listening to what customers here on HN and elsewhere have been saying.
    - apple4ever 4y ago
      No, they won't listen. People have been asking for it for years. Its a big reason we don't pay for GitLab. And will be one of the reasons we will switch to GitHub (which is sad)

apple4ever 4y ago

There absolutely is, but they do not want to hear it. They like their pricing, even if it makes no sense and is worse for them as a company.