THE MILLION-DOLLAR EXPERIMENT: HOW GITHUB BOOSTED CONVERSIONS WITH A SINGLE FLOW CHANGE

Summary from the TLDR Founders newsletter

Most developers didn't even know GitHub had paid features - they thought it was just open source. When Thibault Imbert watched users sign up, they picked free by default because GitHub hid what paid plans offered. Inspired by Grammarly's transparent signup flow, his team redesigned everything. Instead of hiding paid features, they showed exactly what was free versus paid, segmented by user type, and wrote copy like developers talking to developers. The results shocked them - 35% more paid conversions, worth over $1 million in ARR. They were so surprised they double-checked the analytics. CEO Nat Friedman loved it because it felt natural, not pushy. The lesson is counterintuitive - being honest about pricing actually increases conversions when you respect your users' intelligence.