How I Designed a Freemium API Plan Developers Actually Want to Pay For

The Painful Origin Story Two years ago, I launched a BIN lookup API with pricing that looked good on a spreadsheet and failed everywhere else. The model was simple: free tier with 100 requests per month, Pro tier at $29/month with 10,000 requests, and Enterprise at custom pricing. I assumed the progression made sense. Users would try the free tier, hit the limit quickly, and upgrade. What actually happened: the free tier was so constrained that serious developers never bothered onboarding. The j