Gitlab needs to be able to mix licenses on a single system, its current model requires all accounts in an org to operate at the same level, try selling a 1000 seat ultimate license at 99/user/month to tbe average sme. In all companies there are seats that need different levels of capabilities, gitlab is just way to expensive to use at anything above starter, the premium level works out at 2x more expensive than jira/bb/confluence with considerably less capability. I want to be able to buy 200 starter, 50 premium and 5 ultimate licenses and mix them on the same system.

They explicitly said they don't want to do that, for reasons that really aren't clear. There are a LOT of companies that want to be able to mix developers and reporters, but can't because the price is astronomical for zero benefit. So they live with a lower tier (likely free).

Doesn't make sense.

@apple4ever Thank you very much for your feedback! This is very helpful for us to iterate on our handbook explanation and our pricing strategy.

@thawkins Thank you so much for your inputs on our pricing model!

Our current model do not have multiple plans for one customer https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/pricing/#multiple-plan... as @apple4ever mentioned.

However, it's extremely important for us to hear from you. We recently clarified our Pricing Philosophy and Collaboration on pricing with you is part of it: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/pricing/#pricing-philo...

We definitely take your inputs back and consider to build into our next iteration on the pricing strategy.

I'm not saying they should remove any free features, but now and then it'd be nice seeing a Silver feature come to Bronze.

Merge Request Reviews was moved to core as part of this release.

Yes, this update basically reduced the value of Bronze significantly as there were no relevant new features coming to Bronze and those that we were paying for are now in the free tier.

Just a quick search of GitLab issues for "to Starter" and I came across the following:

- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/10107

In general our "Why Starter" page has some great rationale for why we encourage small teams to utilize GitLab Starter/Bronze. https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/starter/

Maybe the value is in ensuring the Gitlab team can continue working on the product, because they are paid to do so ?

Same boat, although with GitHub pricing changes it’s more advantageous to switch. The fact that the security and dependency management is locked at gold when they are free on Github is annoying.

Moving breakman into core is nice but not enough