Your community AMA with Justin Farris, VP Product at GitLab
We put your pricing questions in front of Justin - and he delivered.
Here’s what he shared:
Q: How do you price when users hate talking about pricing?
→ Justin recommends going undercover:
• Show up as a market researcher, not your company
• Use tools like Office Hours to mask bias
• Or ditch surveys entirely and test pricing live in sales convos
Q: What’s your take on A/B testing pricing?
→ Do it when it makes sense.
If you’ve got lots of SKUs or opaque pricing, it’s gold.
Public pricing? Try geo-based variants instead.
Q: How do you test pricing during product dev?
→ Start scrappy.
• Involve PMs + pricing in early sales calls
• Test packaging, not just price points
• Use real feedback to steer pricing and win internal support
Bonus insights:
Packaging matters more than price.
“You can figure out a price point in a spreadsheet. The art is knowing what you’re actually selling – and how to wrap it so people want to pay.”
Freemium can work… if you’re patient.
GitLab had enterprise users on the open-source version for years before converting. When the value hits, the payoff can be huge (think: AWS-level deals).
When surveys fail, get creative.
Use third-party researchers, masked interviews, or live pricing experiments. Slow = closer to the truth.
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