Self-serve

How it works

A self-serve product puts every step of buying on the website. You fill in a sign-up form, receive a login, follow the documentation and enter a card when payment is due. Nobody has to approve you or send a quote.

For an attribution tool, four things have to be true for the label to hold:

• The price, or the formula for it, is on the pricing page.
• Sign-up ends in a working dashboard.
• The SDK and its documentation are open to you from the first day.
• You can cancel from the account settings or by a published process.

When it matters

Self-serve matters most to teams with no one whose job is buying software. A founder who is also the marketer can start evaluating a self-serve tool the same day, and has to schedule around a sales process. It also matters for budgeting, because a published price can be compared before any conversation.

The self-serve plan is usually a vendor's entry plan, with a larger plan sold through sales. Check which features sit in each before assuming the self-serve plan covers your case.

How it relates to attribution

An attribution tool only proves itself inside your own app, with your own links and events. A self-serve plan lets a team run that test before any commitment, where a sales-led purchase puts the quote first and the data second. The trade-offs between the two routes are set out in self-serve signup versus a sales-led purchase.