PricingEmerging Pattern

Donate starter license revenue to charity to create goodwill-driven top-of-funnel acquisition

Price starter or entry-level tiers at near-zero cost and donate all proceeds to charity. This removes price objections, creates positive brand association, and seeds thousands of small teams who expand into paying customers. Works when your product has natural expansion dynamics.

When to use

When you have a product with strong expansion revenue potential and want to maximize adoption at the entry level while building brand goodwill

Don't do this

Hoarding every dollar of revenue from the smallest customers, creating friction that prevents the land-and-expand motion from starting

2 Founders Who Did This

1
Atlassianby Jay Simons

Introduced $10 Starter License program where all proceeds went to Room to Read charity, removing price barriers for small teams while creating positive brand association

Result:Generated $3M+ in charity donations while seeding thousands of small teams that expanded into larger paying customers, contributing to growth from $20M to $2B ARR
See Atlassian growth story →
2
Atlassianby Mike Cannon-Brookes & Scott Farquhar

Offered $10 starter license for up to 10 users with all revenue donated to charity through Atlassian Foundation (1% of profits, products, equity, and employee hours).

Result:Created near-zero-cost entry point that drove bottom-up adoption. Foundation distributed $54M+ and 200K+ volunteer hours while building brand goodwill.
See Atlassian growth story →