Skip to content

Pricing & Packaging Strategy (August 2026)

Status: Test Hypotheses & Commercial Packaging Architecture Product Positioning: The trust layer between KiCad commits and manufacturing release.

1. Plan Tier Overview

┌─────────────────────────┐   ┌─────────────────────────┐   ┌─────────────────────────┐
│     Community Tier      │   │        Team Tier        │   │      Business Tier      │
│          $0/mo          │   │      $49-$99/mo         │   │      $299-$499/mo       │
│      (Open Source)      │   │      (Test Hyp A/B)     │   │      (Custom Terms)     │
├─────────────────────────┤   ├─────────────────────────┤   ├─────────────────────────┤
│ • Unlimited local CLI   │   │ • Everything in Comm.   │   │ • Everything in Team    │
│ • GitHub Action PR gate │   │ • Organization policies │   │ • Self-hosted dashboard │
│ • Core DFM & BOM rules  │   │ • PR Hardware Impact    │   │ • Multi-tenant worker   │
│ • Local JSON/SARIF/HTML │   │ • Time-bounded waivers  │   │ • Signed audit export   │
│ • Standard vendor prof. │   │ • Expired waiver block  │   │ • Custom rule packs     │
│ • Community support     │   │ • Email/Slack support   │   │ • Dedicated onboarding │
└─────────────────────────┘   └─────────────────────────┘   └─────────────────────────┘

2. Pricing Hypotheses for Validation

Note: All pricing numbers below are structured test hypotheses to be validated through design partner pilots and qualitative interviews.

Hypothesis A: Active Repository Model

  • Price: $49 / month for up to 3 active hardware repositories; $15 / additional repo / month.
  • Target Persona: Small hardware consultancy or seed-stage robotics startup.
  • Value Metric: Number of actively developed KiCad repositories. Unlimited contributors and reviewers.

Hypothesis B: Active Engineer Seat Model

  • Price: $19 / active engineer seat / month (Billed annually at $228/yr).
  • Free Reviewers: Unlimited free read-only reviewer and manager seats.
  • Target Persona: Scale-up engineering teams (10–50 engineers).

Hypothesis C: Design Partner Pilot Package

  • Price: $450 / organization / month (3-month structured pilot).
  • Inclusions:
  • Dedicated private Slack/Discord channel with core maintainers.
  • Setup assistance for custom fabricator rule packs.
  • Joint case study and priority roadmap influence.

Hypothesis D: Enterprise Contract Discovery Band

  • Price: $15,000 – $45,000 / year.
  • Inclusions: Self-hosted Docker/Compose control plane, air-gapped license keys, SSO/SAML integration, custom procurement terms, and SLA guarantee.

3. Strict Packaging Boundaries: What Stays Free Forever

To maintain developer trust and open-source vitality, BoardReadyOps enforces a strict boundary:

Open Source Core (Community - $0):

  • Never Paywalled: Core CLI binary, GitHub Action runner, built-in KiCad rule corpus, local reports (JSON, SARIF, Markdown, HTML, JUnit), boardreadyops generate, boardreadyops doctor, and offline verification.
  • We do NOT artificially cripple the CLI or inject nagware.

Premium Value Axis (Team / Business):

  • Premium value is derived from governance, risk management, and team collaboration:
  • Organization-wide policy packs and enforceable standards.
  • Multi-engineer waiver approval workflows with automated expiration tracking.
  • Historical release-to-release evidence comparison and drift auditing.
  • Enterprise fabricator handoff packaging and supply-chain SLA validation.

4. Upsell & Upgrade Triggers

  1. Second Hardware Project / Scaled Team: A team moves from 1 engineer running the CLI to 4 engineers opening PRs requiring unified policy enforcement.
  2. First Production Fabricator Run: Moving from loose prototype checks to strict release policy with mandatory waiver owners before spending $10k+ on fabrication.
  3. External Audit or Customer Handover: An EMS or medical client requires verifiable evidence manifests for every delivered revision.