But - the first thing I want to know it "how much" and then shortly after that I want to know "can I run it myself".
No self-hosting planned for now.
Personally I do it the other way around, first I try it out and see if it's useful, then I'd figure out if I'm willing to accept the tradeoffs of pricing/lock-in.
If you do it the way you suggest, wouldn't that mean you can't actually understand if the business model is fine because of the benefits you get? Seems backwards to me.
Example: enterprise licenses that are meant for a huge org rather than an individual let me know that I shouldn't get excited about a tool because it's not for me. Happens a lot because I'm very into networking and automation.