PLG Feasibility Grader
Grade whether your product can actually carry a self-serve motion.
A pure PLG motion would stall on the weak criteria. A hybrid, self-serve top of funnel, sales-assist for expansion and larger accounts, usually fits products like this best.
Time-to-value and no-touch onboarding are the make-or-break criteria, without them, a free tier generates signups that never activate.
About this calculator
PLG is the growth motion everyone wants because it looks capital-efficient on a pitch deck, but forcing a self-serve motion onto a product that needs a human to explain its value just produces a free tier full of people who never activate. This grader scores the specific prerequisites that determine whether self-serve can actually carry your growth, or whether sales-assist or full sales-led is the better bet.
How to use it
- Rate five criteria as strong yes, partially, or no: whether time-to-value is minutes not weeks, whether a user can onboard with zero human help, whether your price point supports self-serve or low ACV, whether natural virality or collaboration is built in, and whether value is obvious before anyone talks to sales.
- Read the weighted PLG feasibility score out of 100.
- Read the recommended motion, strong PLG fit, a hybrid of self-serve plus sales-assist, or sales-led being the better bet.
Methodology
Time-to-value and self-serve onboarding are each weighted 25 points, since without fast, no-touch activation a free or trial funnel never converts regardless of how good the product is. Obvious value before sales contact is weighted 20, price point and virality 15 each, for 100 points total.
Each criterion scores full weight for "strong yes," half weight for "partially," and zero for "no," and the weighted points sum into the overall feasibility score.
A score of 70 or above signals strong PLG fit, invest in the free/trial funnel and activation. 45-69 suggests a hybrid motion, self-serve for the top of funnel with sales-assist for expansion and larger accounts. Below 45 means the fundamentals for self-serve aren't there yet, and forcing PLG would likely starve a sales motion that would convert better.
Time-to-value and self-serve onboarding are called out as the true make-or-break criteria, without them, a free tier just generates signups that never activate, no amount of virality or attractive pricing fixes that underlying gap.
FAQ
Because they're the load-bearing prerequisites, if a user can't reach value quickly and without help, no other PLG ingredient, pricing, virality, positioning, matters. A free tier with slow time-to-value just produces a graveyard of signups who never came back.
Typically a self-serve free tier or trial handles initial acquisition and small-account conversion, while a sales team engages for larger accounts, custom needs, or expansion deals. Many successful SaaS companies (Slack, Notion in their upmarket motion) run exactly this blend rather than pure PLG or pure sales-led.
It caps it rather than blocking it outright. High ACV usually still needs a sales conversation somewhere in the funnel, but you can still run a PLG-flavored top of funnel (self-serve trial, fast time-to-value) that feeds a sales-assisted close for the deal itself, this is common in the hybrid motion.
Yes, but usually only after deliberately re-engineering the product to shorten time-to-value and remove manual onboarding steps, not just by launching a free tier on top of an unchanged product. Re-run this grader after any material product change to see whether the fundamentals have actually shifted.