I would be so mad if I put in the effort to build everything only to be pay-walled at the end. Just, livid.

I mean, you don't "spring it" on the user at the end. You say something like "try full features now for free! If you build something you like keep it for low low price of....."

It's an effective way of removing friction.

I don't know that this is true for all users — there is logic to asking for payment details when motivation is highest, which is often before putting in a couple hours building a page. Putting down a credit card might also improve customer success, as that will help motivate the customer to finish on your platform, rather than forgetting about it for a month before going to Squarespace because they can barely remember your where they started building the first version...

Actually, I disagree with this premise. It would anger me more if I happily thought that I could do everything 'as is' on the free plan only to be hit with a paywall at the end to finish.

I would far rather see what I CAN'T do up front so that I can decide whether that feature is really worth $$$ to me, or whether I can work around it somehow.

Logojoy does this. It's incredibly effective I imagine.

They're the ones that gave me the example. It's perfect.