Marshall Robbins

When a new user lands in my product, they see everything every menu, every button, every setting, every empty state. It's honest. It's also completely paralyzing.

I watch session recordings and people just freeze, hovering over the sidebar like it's a test they didn't study for.

I keep flip-flopping on this. Three tiers feels transparent and lets people self-select. But every tier I add is another thing to maintain, another support burden, and a reason for someone to pick the wrong one and churn. "Contact us" lets me scope every deal by hand, but it kills all the self-serve signups from people who just want to try it. Half my traffic bounces before they even email.
Is transparent-but-rigid better than flexible-but-friction? How did you land on yours?