diff --git a/changelog/11282.bugfix.rst b/changelog/11282.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..1712d2084
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/11282.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Return "None" as the default value if "None" or no default value if provided by the developer.In this approach, existing calls to the getini function would need to check for "None" values.
diff --git a/src/_pytest/config/__init__.py b/src/_pytest/config/__init__.py
index 447ebc42a..646d7aa96 100644
--- a/src/_pytest/config/__init__.py
+++ b/src/_pytest/config/__init__.py
@@ -1525,6 +1525,8 @@ class Config:
                     return default
                 if type is None:
                     return ""
+                if type == "string":
+                    return None
                 return []
         else:
             value = override_value
diff --git a/testing/test_conftest.py b/testing/test_conftest.py
index cfc2d577b..09d2cbed9 100644
--- a/testing/test_conftest.py
+++ b/testing/test_conftest.py
@@ -221,6 +221,31 @@ def test_setinitial_conftest_subdirs(pytester: Pytester, name: str) -> None:
         assert len(set(pm.get_plugins()) - {pm}) == 0
 
 
+def test_my_option(pytester: Pytester):
+    testdir = pytester.mkdir("test_my_option")
+    testdir.joinpath("conftest.py").write_text(
+        textwrap.dedent(
+            """\
+            def pytest_addoption(parser):
+                parser.addini(
+                    "my_option",
+                    type="string",
+                    default=None,
+                    help="My option",
+                )
+            @pytest.fixture(scope='session')
+            def my_option(request):
+                return request.config.getini("my_option")
+            """
+        ),
+        encoding="utf-8",
+    )
+    result = pytester.runpytest(str(testdir))
+    assert result.ret == 0
+    captured_stdout = result.stdout.str()
+    assert "1 passed" in captured_stdout
+
+
 def test_conftest_confcutdir(pytester: Pytester) -> None:
     pytester.makeconftest("assert 0")
     x = pytester.mkdir("x")