We removed feature paywalls - here’s why you should too

While building DropForm, we followed a pretty standard SaaS pattern at first:
put “advanced” features behind a paywall.

Validations, schema support, integrations - all paid-only.

On paper, it made sense. In reality, it caused a few problems:

• Free users couldn’t build anything realistic

• People never experienced the product’s real value

• Churn happened before users understood why they should pay

Developer tools are evaluated differently than most SaaS.
Devs don’t want demos - they want to wire the tool into a real project.

So we changed the model.

We’ve enabled all core features for all users:

• Validations & schema

• Integrations (Sheets, Slack, webhooks, etc.)

• Full API access

Pricing is now purely about limits and scale, not feature access.

Early takeaway: onboarding feels smoother, usage is more intentional, and the product finally feels like a real tool even on the free plan.

I’m curious:

• Have you tried feature-gated vs limit-based pricing?

• What worked (or didn’t) for your dev product?