FWIW, at Canny, we're a giant fan of Missive—the collaboration aspect to it is amazing and very useful! Plus, it looks and acts nice and simple with no overly complicated bells and whistles. Love!
You're absolutely right. We're not saying that companies starting out should just go for the free plan no matter what and not think about it at all. That's why we added the entry level pricing as a side note, as well as a link to the pricing page and reviews for further investigation. The added calculation sheet also helps to see potential costs based on any plan, not just the free ones, to see how it would affect the total money spent. We also very much held back on including free, yet very low quality/limited tools. And yes—awesome point about the familiarity aspect!
Thanks for the comment! That's 100% true—that's why we added the entry level pricing as well as the link to the pricing page for further evaluation. As a bootstrapped company, at Canny, we're a big fan of (high-quality) free options at least to start out with, when you really just need the basics. We have had to upgrade/change a few times when the free tier doesn't cut it anymore as we grow, but they did for enough time to save us some money when it was extremely important to.
Appreciate the comment! No, it means that after a few beers I'm a master with words and the numbers that drive them, without a few beers I'm also a master at everything else in life. Hope that answers your question!