Usage-based pricing

Usage-based pricing ties what a customer pays to what they consume. For AI products, the unit might be AI actions, documents processed, minutes transcribed, images generated, or credits that convert to different operations. It's popular because AI has real marginal cost: a flat seat price can lose money on your heaviest users while overcharging light ones.

Choosing the unit is the key decision. Customers understand actions and outcomes, like resolved tickets or generated reports, far better than tokens, and a unit tied to value is easier to defend in a sales conversation. Credits add flexibility when operations differ widely in cost, but they need clear rates and visible balances. Many products settle on a hybrid: a base subscription with included usage, plus overage or add-on packs.

Pure usage pricing shifts unpredictability onto the customer, and many buyers dislike surprise bills, so offer budgets, alerts, and caps. It also demands accurate metering: every billable event recorded once, tied to an account, and reconciled with your billing system, for example through Stripe's usage meters. Model prices change, so price from your cost per unit of value plus margin, and revisit it regularly instead of passing raw token costs through.