Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a hot topic, the latest buzzword doing the rounds amongst SaaS start-ups and scale-ups. From the release of books, podcasts and more, SaaS influencers have gone into overdrive positioning it as the next big thing in driving scalable growth. But wait, is putting the product at the heart of lead generation, sales, and retention a new thing? Is it really as revolutionary as it seems? In my experience, while the acronym may be new, many of the principles behind PLG have been in play for quite some time. We will explore the types of PLG with the Logixx Consulting's Product-Led Growth Quadrants. One thing is for sure, bottling up PLG and selling it as the best practice for SaaS businesses is good for start-ups and scale-ups, good for company culture and collaboration and good for businesses seeking to test SaaS products.
What is Product-Led Growth?
At its core, PLG puts the product at the centre of customer acquisition, conversion, and retention. Instead of being over-reliant on demo-centric sales processes, the PLG approach focuses on providing access and information for users to experience the product directly – the product essentially sells itself, and users have the information and confidence to make an informed purchase decision. This is achieved through tactics like freemium models, free trials, and seamless onboarding, all designed to show value upfront with as little friction as possible.
The end goal? To build such a great user experience that customers are more likely to stay, upgrade, and advocate for the product without a salesperson guiding them through the process.
At Logixx Consulting, we use our marketing and commercial experience consulting across the DESK Economies and PLG. We will explore the four key aspects that drive PLG success.
Demand Creation: Offering Value First
PLG starts with creating demand through value, typically delivered via freemium models or free trials. This lets users engage with the product on their own terms. However, knowing your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and aligning your product with the needs of that audience is critical. This is where product-market fit becomes essential. Part of that ICP alignment requires product teams to go beyond guessing what the needs of their customers are, to knowing what they want. Using communications and research tools like Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is a great approach for this.
What is Freemium?
Freemium is a business model in which SaaS companies offer a basic version of their product or service for free, allowing users to access key features without any initial payment. The objective is to attract a large user base by removing the financial barrier to entry, letting users experience the product and its value. If users engage positively and develop a dependency, then there is a better chance of upgrading them to a paid plan that unlocks additional features or benefits.
How are they different from free trials?
What is Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)?
What is Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) and how does this dovetail into the ICP approach?
Throughout this post we will highlight the market leaders making a success of PLG. A prime example is Slack, which disrupted internal team communication. Its freemium model gives teams a taste of the core product, offering just enough value to keep users engaged while prompting them toward paid plans which include advanced features. This strategy has been highly successful because Slack allows users to experience the product’s value independently before any sales intervention. The key to their success is being able to create simple and effective usability offering value first and then showcasing what is possible within the paid version.
PLG focuses on users onboarding themselves. Signing up and getting started must be seamless and without barriers. This ease of access, often accompanied by interactive demos or guided tours, shortens the time from discovery to adoption. Community provides a human and informative aspect of the brand going beyond great usability, template and demoing tools. Showing users that there are others like them, engaging, asking similar questions, and collectively sharing experiences that others can relate to. For PLG teams this is a gold mine for product insights.
Lead Maximisation: Engaging Users Throughout the Journey
Getting users into your product is just the beginning; maximising leads is where PLG strategies really shine. While this sounds simple, compared to traditional sales processes, getting leads to actively use the product was once a huge milestone in itself. Now, PLG transforms that starting point into a continuous opportunity for engagement and growth.
Progressive Disclosure plays a critical role in driving more effective and data-driven PLG insights by personalising user experiences and gradually revealing value in a way that suits their needs, giving customers what they need without human sales intervention. We see progressive disclosure tactics being deployed at two key stages across registration and activation.
Progressive Disclosure within the PLG Registration Process
When registering for freemium or free trials, capturing data related to a user’s ICP and their Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) is crucial. Progressive disclosure, a method where information is requested based on previous answers, is an excellent approach for this. Monday.com does this brilliantly, asking users targeted questions during the registration process. This ensures they gather meaningful data about the user’s ICP and JTBD before the user even starts engaging with the product. By tailoring this early stage of the user journey, Monday.com maximises lead data and increases the chances of conversion.
Progressive Disclosure Post-Activation
Another example is Notion, another early PLG adopter, that relies on progressive disclosure to help users discover its deeper functionality over time. They also incorporate product gamification into their onboarding, offering badges or milestones as users complete tasks. This turns casual users into power users by incentivising deeper exploration of the product. The sense of reward and accomplishment strengthens the bond between user and product, encouraging word of mouth, reviews, and even user-generated case studies.
To truly maximise leads, businesses should track product analytics to understand user behaviour. These insights enable personalised, timely interactions that can significantly improve engagement and drive conversions.
Activation Rate: Converting Leads Into Engaged Users
The activation rate is one of the most critical metrics in PLG. It reflects how effectively the product is converting free users into active users – those who have experienced enough value to continue using it. This is where the most actionable product insights can be captured and tracked. The ability of product and IT teams to mine these insights, and the effectiveness with which marketing and sales teams use them is key to maximising growth.
Activation doesn’t happen by chance. It requires constant testing and refinement of onboarding flows through A/B testing and user segmentation. For example, Canva, a graphic design tool, measures activation by how quickly users create and download their first design. Through experimentation, Canva discovered that showing users template suggestions during onboarding drastically improved conversion rates. This is a classic example of how reducing friction and providing immediate value can enhance product adoption.
User feedback is essential to understanding where friction might exist. A mix of surveys, sentiment analysis, and in-app prompts can reveal pain points that hinder activation. Those who don’t convert are often segmented into re-engagement funnels, with personalised messaging and targeted campaigns designed to bring them back into the product.
Sales Enablement Opportunities: Blending Product Data with Traditional Sales
While PLG focuses on letting the product do the heavy lifting, sales teams still play a vital role, especially as leads move toward higher-value, enterprise-level solutions. The relationship between PLG and traditional sales isn’t either/or; it’s about maximising the product’s value to drive revenue growth. While the product can handle much of the user’s journey, there are some things that only salespeople and personalised conversations can achieve.
In fact, PLG makes sales enablement even more powerful by using product usage data to qualify and prioritise leads. Thanks to progressive disclosure and product analytics, sales teams already have valuable insights into how prospects are engaging with the product and where their pain points lie by the time they step in.
For example, sales teams at Atlassian use insights such as which features a user has adopted and how frequently they log in to tailor their outreach. This allows sales reps to provide highly relevant solutions rather than delivering generic sales pitches.
This phase of PLG is also about creating a seamless integration between in-app messaging, email campaigns, and traditional sales efforts. Automated communication strategies deliver personalised messages when users hit specific milestones or show signs of churn, ensuring timely engagement. Sales teams then step in to focus on upselling, cross-selling, and supporting users who require more complex or customised solutions.
Sales Enablement Opportunities: Blending Product Data with Traditional Sales
While PLG focuses on letting the product drive much of the growth, sales teams still play a vital role, especially for complex or enterprise-level deals. The relationship between PLG and traditional sales is not an either/or scenario; it's about leveraging the product to maximise revenue. Some things only human interaction—sales calls, demos, and deeper conversations—can achieve.
PLG, however, makes sales enablement even more powerful by using product usage data to qualify and prioritise leads. By the time the sales team steps in, they already have a wealth of data on how the prospect has engaged with the product and where their pain points lie.
For example, sales teams at Atlassian use insights like which features a user has adopted and how often they log in to tailor their outreach. This approach enables sales reps to offer highly relevant, personalised solutions, rather than relying on general pitches.
This phase of PLG also requires creating a seamless integration between in-app messaging, email campaigns, and traditional sales efforts. Automated communication strategies deliver personalised messages when users hit specific milestones or show signs of churn. Sales teams can then focus on upselling, cross-selling, and supporting users with more complex needs, ensuring long-term growth and customer retention.
Why Does Product-Led Growth Seem Like a New Approach?
With PLG being such a hot topic in SaaS, it's easy to see why people perceive it as a radically new concept. In reality, PLG is more about rethinking how we use existing tools and data than inventing something brand new—a concept familiar to digital marketers and conversion specialists. So, why does it seem new? Here’s why:
From Sales-Led to Product-Led
In traditional models, SaaS companies were sales-led, with outbound strategies like cold calls and demos guiding the process. The product often wasn't experienced by users until late in the sales cycle. PLG flips this approach by putting the product in the user’s hands from the start, allowing them to experience value immediately.
Sales teams still play a crucial role, but they now step in at key points in the user journey—such as post-activation—instead of driving the process from the outset.
Data-Driven Decision Making
What feels new about PLG is the real-time access to data. Companies can now track every interaction within their product, enabling data-driven decisions on product improvements, user engagement, and lead qualification.
In the past, teams relied on feedback, surveys, and reports that took weeks to gather. Today, tools like Mixpanel and Heap offer instant insights into user behaviour, allowing businesses to pivot quickly when needed.
Cross-Department Collaboration
It's not unfamiliar that SaaS businesses experience silos between marketing, sales, product and customer success teams. The silos would be marketing generating leads, sales converting the leads, and customer success handled retention. PLG fosters cross-department collaboration by uniting these teams around the product. The garden walls are broken down by a culture of collaboration. Marketing focuses on driving product adoption, sales step in post-activation leading on the more complex sales that require a human relationship, and customer success ensures long-term engagement. This unified approach creates a more holistic customer journey.
Important Note: While freemium and free trials work for most businesses, they may not be suitable for enterprise clients or heavily regulated industries, where new vendor processes can be complex. Here, sales teams are indispensable, navigating stakeholder management and the myriad of compliance requirements, like ISO certifications, information security, SSO, and integrations.
Real-World Examples of Product-Led Growth in Action
To understand how PLG works in practice, let's look at a few standout examples: Monday.com, Canva, and Wix. Each has leveraged PLG to achieve significant growth by offering a seamless, product-first experience.
Monday.com: Collaborative Work Management
Monday.com uses a freemium model that allows small teams to sign up, onboard themselves, and start managing projects immediately. Tailored onboarding ensures users experience immediate value, boosting the likelihood of conversion to paid plans.
Canva: Democratising Design
Canva offers a free version that lets users design without paying upfront. Activation is tracked by how quickly users create and download their first design. In-app prompts introduce premium features when users are most likely to benefit, creating a natural upsell process.
Wix: Customisable Website Creation
Wix offers both a freemium experience and a guided process using Wix ADI. Its customisable onboarding flow caters to different user personas, from novices to experienced users. In-app tutorials guide users through features, and premium offerings are introduced based on user engagement.
How PLG Differs from Traditional Approaches
PLG may feel new, but it’s more of an evolution than a radical departure from traditional SaaS models. Here’s how PLG differs:
Sales-Led Growth vs Product-Led Growth
In sales-led models, companies relied on high-touch, outbound sales efforts. Sales controlled the funnel, and users engaged with the product later in the cycle. PLG flips this dynamic, allowing the product to drive much of the acquisition and engagement, with sales stepping in later.
Marketing’s New Role
In traditional models, marketing focused on lead generation. In PLG, marketing takes on a broader role, focusing on driving adoption through education and tailored onboarding.
The Funnel vs The Flywheel
Traditional sales models view the customer journey as a funnel with a distinct end. PLG adopts a flywheel approach where engaged users return to the product, refer others, and generate organic growth, creating a self-sustaining cycle.
Conclusion: PLG is Here to Stay
PLG isn't just a buzzword—it’s a strategic shift that puts the product at the heart of revenue generation and lead acquisition. It’s built on a framework of continuous testing, learning, and evolving, making it particularly suited to SaaS environments.
For companies like Monday.com, Canva, and Wix, PLG has been a driving force behind rapid, scalable growth. Their success proves that putting the product at the centre isn’t just a trend—it’s a sustainable, long-term strategy that aligns sales, marketing, and product teams around a shared goal: maximising user value and driving growth.
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