I hear you, and we are working on fixing that even as it might take some time. The challenge for us is that for an enterprise, alternatives could cost literally in the millions (see Oracle pricing at $100k's for just a single 8-core commodity machine). For start-ups, we have offered Citus for prices lower than $5k per node in the past, and we provide an entirely free community version as well.

Essentially, our take is to not have pricing be what stops you from using CitusDB. And if you are an enterprise, the value you get from using Citus should far exceed that you'd get from any other alternative out there.