Self-Serve

A buying motion where customers sign up, pay, and onboard themselves through the product, with no salesperson involved.

When you'd see it: Low-priced, easy-to-adopt products. The signup-with-a-credit-card flow is the self-serve motion.

Why it matters: Self-serve scales to many small customers at near-zero marginal acquisition cost, but it only fits products simple and cheap enough to buy without a conversation.