Feature gating
FEE-chur GAY-ting
Restricting specific features to paid plans. The mechanism that turns free users into paying customers.
Feature gating means certain features are only available on paid plans. The free tier gets core functionality. The paid tier gets advanced features. The enterprise tier gets security and admin features. Users see what they are missing, which creates the motivation to upgrade.
The art is choosing which features to gate. Gate the wrong features and your free tier is either too powerful (no upgrade motivation) or too weak (no one adopts it). The best feature gates are features that matter when usage scales: team collaboration, advanced analytics, integrations, and admin controls.
Never gate features that are required for the product to work. If your API monitoring tool does not send alerts on the free tier, no one will use it long enough to upgrade. The free tier must be genuinely useful. The paid tier must be genuinely better.
Examples
GitHub's feature gating strategy.
GitHub Free: unlimited public repos, 500MB packages storage. GitHub Team: protected branches, code owners, 2GB packages. GitHub Enterprise: SAML SSO, audit log API, 50GB packages. Each gate targets a larger organization with bigger compliance and governance needs.
A startup gates analytics.
A form builder includes basic submission tracking for free. Advanced analytics (conversion funnels, A/B test results, field-level drop-off rates) are gated to the $49/month plan. Users build forms for free, see that their forms have a 30% drop-off rate, and pay to find out where.
Feature gating done wrong.
A database company gates backups to its paid tier. A developer builds on the free tier, launches a production app, and discovers they cannot create backups without paying. They feel trapped, not motivated. They move to a competitor. Gating essential reliability features is a trust violation.
In practice
Read more on the blog
Frequently asked questions
Which features should be free?
Features that let a single user get value from your product should be free. Core functionality, basic integrations, and enough usage to evaluate the product. Gate features that only matter at scale: team collaboration, advanced security, admin controls, extended history, and premium support.
How do I measure if my feature gates are working?
Track the feature gate conversion rate: what percentage of users who encounter a gate end up upgrading? A healthy rate is 5-15%. If it is below 2%, the gated feature is not compelling enough. If it is above 20%, you might be gating something too essential.
Related terms
How you bundle features into plans and tiers. Which features go in which plan at which price. The architecture of your pricing page.
Offering multiple pricing plans at different price points, each with more features or higher limits. The classic Good/Better/Best model.
A pricing model where the base product is free and revenue comes from paid upgrades. The dominant model in developer tools.
A buying experience where customers sign up, configure, and pay without talking to a salesperson. Credit card in, product out.
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