PLG vs SLG – What should you be using for your next product?

Maybe it doesn’t matter where you start because you might need both.

Let me start with the answer nobody likes: it depends.

In my first startup, we tried to sell a productivity tool for remote teams. We were convinced it was a PLG play. “Just build it, let them try it, and they’ll love it”.

We threw up a landing page, added a free trial, pushed it on Reddit and Product Hunt, and waited. People signed up. Some even used the product. But most never came back. And the ones who did? They asked for things we never intended to build—or they came from markets we never intended to serve.

It took us 2-3 months to realize: that growth is not just about distribution but more about fit. That’s when I learned this truth the hard way: PLG isn’t always the go-to-market strategy, and SLG isn’t just for enterprises. And choosing between them isn’t a binary decision — it's a strategy grounded in your product's complexity, your customer’s buying behavior, and the current stage of your product’s maturity.

In this post, we will try to break them down, figure out what actually works, and more importantly — when.

What really is PLG and SLG?

Product-Led Growth (PLG)

This is where the product does most of the heavy lifting. Users discover your product, sign up, explore its value (often via a free trial or freemium tier), and ideally convert — without ever needing to talk to sales.
Think: Notion, Figma, Calendly. Clean onboarding, intuitive UX, and clear aha moments are critical. If the product’s good, it sells itself.

You invest more in growth loops, activation, self-serve funnels, and usage-based upgrades. It's great for bottoms-up adoption and tends to start with individuals or small teams.

Sales-Led Growth (SLG)

Here, sales is the driver. Prospects usually enter through marketing or outbound outreach, then a sales team engages — running demos, navigating procurement, working through objections, negotiating pricing, etc.
Think: Salesforce, Workday, Oracle. Complex, high-ticket deals where the buyer isn’t always the end user. You optimize for lead qualification, stakeholder alignment, and enterprise requirements.

This motion typically suits products with long sales cycles, high ACVs (average contract value), or heavy customization.

Most great companies today use both

The best companies build products that sell themselves — and then add humans to help when it matters.

Take Zoom. You can sign up, host a meeting, and share a link — all within minutes. Classic PLG: fast, frictionless, and user-first. But if you’re an IT manager at a 500-person org looking for SSO, detailed analytics, or compliance features? There’s a sales team ready to walk you through procurement, security reviews, and volume pricing. That’s SLG.

Same with Slack. It started with viral, bottoms-up adoption — teams inviting each other in like wildfire. But once it hit a certain scale, the need for admin controls, integrations, and company-wide rollouts made SLG a natural layer.

Even newer players like Linear are catching on. Most users find them through word of mouth or social, but when a high-intent lead from a large team comes in, they’re not afraid to jump on a call and help close the loop.

The 0–1 phase - Everyone starts with Sales, even if they don’t admit it

Here’s the part no one puts on their launch blog:
Every early-stage product is sales-led.
It just happens to be the founder (or the first PM, or the designer-engineer duo) doing the selling.

I’ve been on teams where we added weeks into building simplified onboarding flows, user-friendly tooltips, and designing the perfect freemium dashboard.
But none of it really mattered — because we didn’t yet know what problem we were really solving or who actually cared.

So we did what works: we dropped the playbook and hit the ground.

• Picked 30 ideal customer profiles (ICPs).

• Wrote thoughtful cold emails.

• Got on Zooms.

• Did white-glove onboarding.

• Rewrote our pitch every single day based on what landed (and what didn’t).

Was it scalable? Not even close.
Did it work? Absolutely.

Because in the 0–1 phase, you don’t need scale.
You need clarity.
You need 10 users who deeply love what you’re building — not 1,000 drive-bys who never come back.

You’re not optimizing for conversions yet.
You’re optimizing for insight — and insight comes from conversations, not dashboards.

So… What should you use for your next product?

Here’s how I like to think about it:

Are you pre-product market fit? Do the unscalable things.

Seriously — you don’t “choose” between PLG or SLG at this stage. You do whatever it takes to get your first 10–20 customers across the line.

I have known companies where the CEO personally cold-emailed engineering leaders for weeks.
No marketing site. No pricing page.
Just grit.

He ran every demo. Took every call. Did follow-ups. Tweaked the pitch live.
It wasn’t scalable — but it worked. And more importantly — it gave the team a priceless signal about who cared, what resonated, and where the real pain was.

Only after that do you build your self-serve onboarding.
Only then does PLG make sense — because now, you know exactly what the product needs to show, say, and do to convert.

Early on, SLG disguised as founder-led hustle is your best friend.
It’s a forcing function to learn fast and tighten your value prop.
Once you’ve nailed your ICP and their pain, then you can scale that insight into a product-led motion that converts.

Build the engine after you know where you’re going.

Is your product easy to adopt? or Does it need hand-holding?

This is one of the first questions I ask when thinking about go-to-market strategy.

If you’re building something horizontal, intuitive, and habit-forming — PLG can work wonders.

A friend of mine recently launched an AI writing tool for recruiters. The aha moment is instant: paste a job description, hit a button, and candidates get personalized outreach. People go from trial to paid in minutes. No call. No pitch. Just product value doing the talking.

Now compare that with something like a cost optimization engine for Kubernetes clusters. You could have the cleanest UI in the world — but most DevOps teams won’t feel the value until someone walks them through how it fits into their existing setup. That’s where human guidance matters.

💡 Rule of thumb:
If a user can find value in under 10 minutes, PLG might be your wedge.
If not, lean into SLG — or a hybrid motion.

Can your product talk back? Maybe try product-led sales?

PLG works best when your product feeds signals back to your team. For example:

• Who activated?

• Who invited others?

• Who hit a usage threshold?

• Who’s stuck?

This is where things get interesting.

In a PLS model, the product still drives the initial motion — trial, freemium, self-serve. But behind the scenes, your team is watching for intent signals:
Who activated? Who invited teammates? Who’s bumping into usage limits?

And when the right signals show up — that’s when your sales team steps in.

Not with a cold pitch. But with help.

“Hey, noticed your team’s close to the user limit — want to hop on a quick call to see how we can unlock more value?”

It’s consultative. It’s human. And most importantly, it’s timely.
No cold outbound. No spam. Just value → insight → human support.

When SLG is the only way

That said, there are products where PLG alone just isn’t enough.

• Your product is complex or mission-critical.

• Time-to-value is long.

• Your buyer isn’t your user.

• You sell to enterprises with legal, compliance, and procurement gates.

Take a developer security platform. Your end users might be engineers. But your buyer is probably a CISO or a VP of Eng. They’re not going to swipe a card after a free trial. They want a demo. A whitepaper. Maybe an RFP. They want to trust the people behind the tool as much as the product itself.

This is where a classic sales-led motion shines. You need outbound, solution engineers, consultative selling — the full playbook.

But even here, a PLG mindset still helps.
Give your sales team a playground. A sandbox. A limited-feature free trial. Let prospects see some value, even if the deal still runs through procurement.

Don’t be religious. Be pragmatic.

One thing I’ve learned building and shipping products:
No one cares how you close deals — just that you do.

If your product is simple but the market is crowded, PLG helps you stand out.
It gets you in the hands of users fast, builds love, and scales reach.

If your product is complex and high-stakes, SLG gives you the structure to navigate the buying maze — from procurement to security reviews to IT handoffs.

And if you’re like most of us?
You’ll do both.

A hybrid strategy isn’t a compromise — it’s a progression.
You lead with the product. Layer in sales when signals show intent.
And evolve your motion as your customer base, product surface, and deal size grow.

Use what works. Drop what doesn’t.
That’s not a bad plan switch. That’s just good product sense.

Use this cheat sheet to guide your motion

I’ve put together a quick summary of what we’ve discussed, which can help you decide whether PLG or SLG is the best fit for your model. This cheat sheet is a simple way to check where you stand.

Closing thoughts

The next time you find yourself debating PLG vs. SLG, flip the question around.

Ask yourself:

• How does my product create value?

• How do my customers buy?

• Where does my team have leverage?

Once you have answers to those, try choosing the strategy that best supports your reality. Don’t get stuck in the analysis paralysis. PLG and SLG do not come with strict guidelines. They’re frameworks. Use both when it makes sense.

And above all, keep talking to your customers.

They’ll always show you the way.

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— Dhrubajyoti
Product @ Harness | Thinking about agent infrastructure, developer experience, and LLM applications.