When we started Chiblu, we built three pricing plans the way every marketplace does. Free for trying it out, paid for growing, premium for unlimited. It felt safe. It felt like how things are done.
But every conversation I had with a maker — every late-night message from someone weighing whether to upgrade so they could list one more product — told me something was off.
So we changed it.
Starting today, Chiblu is free for every maker. No plans. No tiers. No upgrade buttons. Just a store, your products, and a path to customers.
Why we removed the plans
The plans solved a problem makers didn't have.
The hardest part of being an independent maker in India isn't paying ₹499 a month. It's the gap between making something beautiful in your studio and finding the people who'd love it. It's the algorithm that doesn't surface you, the marketplace that takes your photos and buries them three pages deep, the platform that treats your craft like inventory.
Every rupee a maker spends on a subscription is a rupee not going into materials, packaging, or photography. Every plan tier we added created a decision that took time away from making. And every "free vs paid" comparison page on our site quietly suggested that some makers were more worthy of being seen than others.
That's not a marketplace. That's a hierarchy.
We don't want a hierarchy. We want every maker — the one starting from her kitchen table with two products, and the one running a six-figure brand from a studio in Bengaluru — to have the same store, the same tools, the same shot.
This isn't a promotion or a trial. There's no "free for the first three months." Free is the model. It's how Chiblu works now, and how it will keep working.
What changes for sellers
If you already have a store on Chiblu, here's what's different starting today:
You're on Chiblu Free. Every seller is, automatically. If you were on a paid plan before today, your subscription has been ended. If you were on the old free tier with a three-product cap, the cap is gone.
Unlimited products. List one. List a hundred. The number doesn't matter anymore. Your catalogue is your catalogue.
No more upgrade prompts. No more "you've used 3 of 3 slots." No more banners pushing you to a higher tier. The interface gets quieter.
Everything else stays exactly the same. Your store URL, your products, your orders, your payouts, your KYC, your verified status — all of it untouched. You don't need to do anything. There's no migration, no re-onboarding, no fine print.
What stays the same
The thing that mattered most about Chiblu was never the plan structure. It was the experience of having your own corner of the internet, with your brand and your products, where buyers come to find you specifically — not where they end up after a search engine ranks you against three thousand other sellers.
That stays.
The careful, considered editorial approach to the homepage. The featured stores. The way the marketplace surfaces makers instead of products. The 1:1 relationship between you and the buyer who walks into your store. None of that was tied to a subscription tier. None of it is changing.
If anything, removing the plans lets us spend more time on what actually moves the needle — getting more buyers to your store, making your products easier to share, helping you tell your story.
A few questions you might have
Is this a free trial? No. There's no end date, no countdown, no "go premium to unlock." Free is the model.
What if I was paying for a plan? Your subscription has been ended. You keep your account, your products, your orders. Nothing else changes for you except you stop being billed.
Will plans come back later? We have no plans to bring them back. If that ever changed, you'd hear about it directly from me, in writing, well in advance — and existing sellers would be grandfathered. But right now, the direction is opposite: simpler, not more layered.
Does this mean Chiblu is shutting down or losing focus? The opposite. The decision came from looking at where the friction was and removing it. Chiblu is more committed than ever — to the makers already here and the thousands who haven't joined yet.
Can I still upgrade my features somehow? Every feature is now available to every seller. Nothing to upgrade — everything is unlocked.
To the makers who were paying
A short, honest word.
You believed in Chiblu enough to pay for it before there was much to prove. That mattered. It funded the build. It told me people would invest in a marketplace that respected them, when the alternative was free platforms that didn't.
Going forward, you don't pay. But the work you supported continues — better, with more makers, in the direction you helped point us.
Thank you.
What this looks like, practically
Open your seller dashboard. The plan label is gone. The pricing page on the seller site is gone. The "manage subscription" button is gone. Your sidebar is quieter. The product page no longer counts you down to a limit.
If you want to add ten new products today, do it. If you want to keep your store exactly the way it is, do that. The platform stays out of your way.
Your store URL — chiblu.com/your-brand — works the same. Your buyers won't notice anything different on their end. The change is entirely on our side.
If you've been holding back from listing more products because of the old limit, today's a good day to add them. The catalogue is yours.
What's next
This is one of several changes coming over the next quarter, all moving in the same direction — less friction, more visibility, more time spent on what makes your store feel like yours. We'll write about each as it ships.
Until then: your store is open. Your products are live. There's no plan to manage, no decision to make.
Just make.
— Pradeep