Hey Ashley, thanks for the thoughtful response! You put it clearly: what matters is the bottom line for the business buying the service. In this case, I think it’s a bit of a binary choice, in the same way that web hosting is one. Either you need to buy web hosting, or you don’t , but there’s a lock-in once you get there.

With web hosting, you can get it for free through Netlify (using Stackbit or otherwise), but it’s hard to transition to free if you’re currently on WordPress.com, Wix, SquareSpace, or even a private web host.

I see Stackbit similarly: either you definitely use it (and thus find its use profitable) or you definitely don’t (because you don’t want pay). And the profit would come from developer hours saved from use of the platform.

Doing that math, at $50/hour (maybe more, with burden costs), a team of 10 would only need to save 3 hours a month to afford $150. If Stackbit saves about half an hour (possibly a lot more, using themes) for each site, that’s 6 sites per month. For a team of 4, it’s a “must buy" if they launch a single site per month. Interesting stuff!