# Which product archetypes use PLG vs sales-led growth?

Source: Lazyweb Research
Published: 2026-07-07
Sample size: n=757
Tags: saas, onboarding, ux-patterns, experiments
HTML: https://www.lazyweb.com/research/which-archetypes-use-plg-vs-sales-led-growth
Markdown: https://www.lazyweb.com/research/which-archetypes-use-plg-vs-sales-led-growth.md

**Answer.** Sales-led and cold-outreach growth are concentrated in Enterprise and Collaborative archetypes — Enterprise runs sales-led at 29 of 70 apps (41%) and land-and-expand at 23 of 70 (33%) [1]. Consumer, Social, and Prosumer archetypes lean the mass/self-serve channels: PR, paid, word of mouth, network effects, and PLG [1]. If you are choosing between bottom-up PLG and top-down sales, your archetype largely decides it.

> Enterprise apps run sales-led growth at 41% (29/70); Consumer/Social lean PLG and mass channels — July 2026.

## Top growth engines by archetype

Sales-motion engines are archetype-specific [1]:

| Archetype | Sales-led (B2B) | Cold outreach | Land-and-expand | PLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise (n=70) | 29 | 28 | 23 | 12 |
| Collaborative (n=53) | 18 | 18 | 23 | — |
| Prosumer (n=118) | — | — | 13 | 42 |
| Consumer (n=546) | — | — | — | 124 |
| Social (n=260) | — | — | — | 55 |

Enterprise and Collaborative are the only archetypes where sales-led, cold outreach, and land-and-expand rank near the top; below the ≥10 co-occurrence threshold in Consumer/Social, they simply don't appear [1].

## How to apply it

If you are Enterprise or Collaborative, a sales-led or land-and-expand motion is normal and expected — roughly 4 in 10 Enterprise apps run sales-led [1]. If you are Consumer, Social, or Prosumer, self-serve PLG plus mass channels (PR, paid, word of mouth) is the pattern, and a heavy outbound sales team is off-archetype. Prosumer sits in between — PLG-dominant (42/118) with a small land-and-expand tail (13/118) as individual users pull the product into teams [1].

## Caveats

Growth engine x archetype is a cross-tab of two multi-valued tags, so a single company contributes to multiple cells; cells below 10 co-occurrences are omitted (shown as '—'), not zero [1]. Per-archetype denominators run from 546 Consumer down to 53 Collaborative.

## The numbers

| Stat | Computed from |
| --- | --- |
| 29 of 70 (41%) | ge_by_archetype: Enterprise Sales-led 29 / n 70 |
| 28 of 70 | ge_by_archetype: Enterprise Cold outreach 28 / n 70 |
| 23 of 70 (33%) | ge_by_archetype: Enterprise Land-and-expand 23 / n 70 |
| 12 of 70 | ge_by_archetype: Enterprise Product-led self-serve 12 / n 70 |
| 18 of 53 | ge_by_archetype: Collaborative Sales-led 18 / n 53 |
| 23 of 53 | ge_by_archetype: Collaborative Land-and-expand 23 / n 53 |
| 42 of 118 | ge_by_archetype: Prosumer Product-led self-serve 42 / n 118 |
| 13 of 118 | ge_by_archetype: Prosumer Land-and-expand 13 / n 118 |
| 124 of 546 | ge_by_archetype: Consumer Product-led self-serve 124 / n 546 |
| 55 of 260 | ge_by_archetype: Social Product-led self-serve 55 / n 260 |

## Methodology

Universe: the 757 archetype-tagged apps in Lazyweb's ~800-app tracked corpus, July 2026 pull. Method: growth-engine x archetype cross-tab of two multi-valued tags. Caveat: a company appears in multiple cells; cells below 10 co-occurrences omitted (shown as '—').

## Sources & citations

- [1] Lazyweb Research analysis of 757 archetype-tagged apps (~800-app tracked corpus), July 2026. growth-engine x archetype cross-tab; cells below 10 co-occurrences omitted.

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