Working in open communities creates perverse dynamics when trying to pick tools. So many companies have a pay per user model but I want to be able to grant access to people in the hope that they'll be involved enough to become users.
In any situation I probably have 3-5 actual users and 5-10 people who I've invited for community-building purposes. So I end up staying on free tiers, even though I'd be happy to give platforms $20-30/month.
@shauna yeah that's a gap. would be a neat if you could hire someone to set up hosting for a FOSS option. so you get the convenience of not doing maintenance yourself, but also not having an arbitrary user limit or paying per head. the other advantage is you have the freedom to hire someone else without needing to stand up a new system with a new service provider
not sure how the pricing works out though. upfront costs may be higher if the setup is more bespoke or complicated
