Tiering is a product story: who is each plan for, and what does “enough” mean? For developer tools — especially credit-metered AI billing — the failure mode is either useless Free (no one adopts) or resentful Growth (they feel punished for succeeding).
This note is for founders and PMs deciding what ships on Free vs Growth for Chargly-shaped products. It is not a feature checklist from on high; it is a framework you can adapt.
What Free owes the builder
Free should let a serious team validate the full loop:
Minimum credible Free loop
- Create or connect wallets and see balances update
- Meter real events against real pricing rules
- Run Stripe-backed top-ups in a way that mirrors production
- Touch docs and APIs you will actually use when you ship
If any of those are paywalled, you are not testing Chargly — you are testing a slide deck.
What Growth should unlock
Growth is for production posture: higher limits, deeper Pricing Advisor workflows, history and controls you need when money and usage are real — not for “now you get wallets.”
The line
Free = validate the billing loop credibly. Growth = run it under real load with operator-grade tooling.
| Dimension | Usually Free | Usually Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Core APIs (SDK / MCP) | Yes, enough to ship a slice | Higher quotas, SLAs |
| Stripe top-ups | Yes, representative flow | Volume, pack complexity |
| Pricing exploration | See value | Apply/reject, full version history |
| Team seats / envs | Enough for one team | Org-scale patterns |
Exact boundaries change; the principle should not.
How to describe the upgrade without hype
Good upgrade copy sounds like infrastructure maturing:
- “Higher monthly event volume”
- “Full recommendation history and approval workflow”
- “Production support expectations”
Bad copy sounds punitive:
- “Unlock basic features you already used”
- “Now you can finally integrate”
Chargly’s current posture (why it is structured this way)
Chargly’s Free tier is meant to keep the billing loop honest: you can build, meter, and purchase credits like a real product. Growth adds what operators need when usage and pricing decisions become a weekly job — not a weekend spike.
That mirrors how we think about category building: credit-first AI billing only wins if teams experience the abstraction, not read about it.
When to revisit the line
Revisit tiers when:
- Adoption stalls because Free cannot demonstrate value
- Power users hit limits that feel arbitrary, not protective
- Support repeatedly explains the same upgrade confusion
The line is not permanent law — but every move should tighten the story, not dilute it.
A clean Free/Growth boundary is respect for the user’s time. Free should feel generous; Growth should feel obvious once they are serious. Anything in between is debt you pay in churn and mistrust.