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I think as long as "feature flag entitlements" are seen as distinctly different from what engineers usually use feature flags for (small incremental changes of individual components, testing, roll-outs, A/B testing) they can work well. An entitlement should have a clear link to a customer-facing feature, which are conceptually much larger blocks of functionality. One difficulty with this approach is that you still have to take into account a lot of billing-related aspects, e.g., handling customers in arrears, overage charges if they go over a certain limit, having different pricing models for the same feature, or resetting/carrying over usage counters on plan changes/upgrades - this can add a lot of complexity over time!

That's why we decided to offer separate feature entitlements that are tightly coupled to the billing chain and metering as part of Wingback (disclaimer: I'm the CTO). In the end, depending on your plan complexity and how much you have already invested in feature flags, I think both approaches can work well. Having some kind of feature gating in place for your customers will also make your life a lot easier for provisioning customer accounts and being able to offer custom packages.



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