Outcome-based pricing only works if you can measure the outcome, attribute it to your product alone, and your customers can stomach unpredictability.
Founders, stop losing sleep over outcome-based pricing: time for a bit of demystification.
Despite what the current trend says, outcome-based pricing is NOT the future for everyone.
The reason is simple: it only works if three things are true:
- You can measure the outcome
- You can attribute the results to your product alone
- Your customers can stomach unpredictability (most aren't there yet)
Is your AI orchestrating and delegating tasks? Outcome is impossible to measure.
Is your AI executing tasks based on a prompt? Quality of execution depends entirely on quality of input. Outcome-based doesn't apply here either.
If your AI owns a full problem A to Z (like resolving tickets) it starts to make sense (MAYBE).
The one mistake I see: founders doing nothing because they think outcome-based is the only move, and they can't figure it out. That's not a strategy.
Everyone needs to adapt to AI. But there is no one playbook.
Pricing in the AI era will not be as obvious as it was in pure SaaS days. Adios simple subscriptions and clean good / better / best tiers. Everything depends on your industry, clients, costs, product, and competition.
You will have to figure out your own logic. And if you do so before your competitors, you might just win the game.
