Design Software Pricing Models

If your company still charges per seat, you need a new pricing model. The math is already working against you. I've watched three pricing revolutions in enterprise software from close range. Perpetual licensing to subscription. Subscription to consumption. What's happening now is the fourth, and it's moving faster than the others. Here's what I'm seeing from the buyer side. Customers are consolidating vendors. Terminating point solutions. Using AI agents to fill the gaps that platforms don't cover. Fewer seats. Lower spend. Same or better output. As a buyer, I love it. As a vendor watching your seat count compress, it should be a wake-up call. Two models are emerging to replace seat-based. Consumption-based. Not new, but accelerating. You pay for what you actually use. Clean, defensible, scales with the value delivered. Outcomes-based. Genuinely new. The pitch is simple: "We automate ten headcounts of work. You save ~$1M. You pay us $250K." Hard to argue with the math. Much harder to operationalize the proof at scale. I'll be honest: I don't think anyone has fully figured this out yet (except potentially Manny Medina?). But the direction is clear even if the mechanics aren't. Here's the underlying problem. Seat-based pricing assumed software was the scarce resource. Your buyer is now using AI to do for $10 a month what your $1,000 seat license used to be the only way to accomplish. That's not a negotiation. That's a structural problem. If you're still charging per seat, what's your plan B? #ai #leadership #gtm #transformation

Most SaaS pricing gets more complex over time. But Figma just made theirs simpler by adding new seat types. Sounds backwards, But it might be the smartest pricing move of the year. When Dylan Field launched Figma, the pricing was clear: 👉 Viewers: Free 👉 Editors: Paid 👉 Vision: Make design accessible to everyone And it worked, Figma grew like crazy. But then came FigJam, Dev Mode, and Figma Slides and growth got more complex. Each new product or persona added a new layer: ➕ Extra toggles ➕ Add-on pricing ➕ Fragmented tiers It was the kind of thing that can spiral into chaos. But instead of letting complexity win, Figma flipped the script: ✅ Rolled out a new tiered model ✅ Bundled products by job-to-be-done (JTBD) ✅ Removed the add-on toggles entirely Now, customers choose from: Collab Seats → Light users of Slides + FigJam Dev Seats → Engineers who inspect, not design Full Seats → Designers who need it all Each seat type maps cleanly to a user persona. Each tier reinforces the original vision. And it actually allowed them to raise prices while making the experience simple. It's a rare example of pricing evolving with the product. What do you think: Can other SaaS companies pull off this kind of tiered simplification? Or is Figma just a special case?

With this new wave of AI, seat-based pricing just doesn’t make sense anymore. We’re already seeing the shift play out across the first wave of AI-native SaaS companies displacing incumbents: 1. Developer tools → Cursor moved away from seats because an AI coding assistant creates variable value depending on how much you code. GitHub Copilot works the same way—usage-based, not seat-gated. 2. Design tools → Lovable charges for what their AI produces (outputs), not for how many designers are on a team. Unlike Figma, they sell completed work, not seats. 3. Sales/GTM tools → Early GTM platforms like Clay lean into outcome-based pricing. Users consume credits for enrichment and workflows—scaling with usage, not access. 4. Customer support → Intercom , Zendesk, and startups like Lang.ai are pricing by conversations handled, not by reps. Meanwhile, most SaaS (especially CRMs) still charge you for CRUD—basic record-keeping. We don’t think you should pay for that. Instead, more companies are experimenting with credits tied to queries, models, or insights. Clarify is doing the same for CRM. It’s free to use and free to seat. You only pay when our agent does work on your behalf. Think of it as a teammate: sending emails, generating briefs, following up, updating deals automatically. That’s what you’re paying for—not just another login. This is a deliberate counter-position to legacy CRMs. They monetize users. We monetize outcomes. I’ve seen the flaws of seat-based pricing firsthand. At Amplitude, we had 800 employees, 400 Salesforce seats, and still paid seven figures—yet half the company couldn’t access customer data. That’s a massive problem. Data is the fuel that drives growth. Our model is simple: → Everyone gets access to customer data. → You only pay when our agent creates value. If you like the value, you’ll use it more. We’ll earn more. You’ll win more. If not—turn it off and save costs. You can explore the model more at clarify.ai/pricing

We closed a 6-figure deal with a company that started on a $300 plan. Here’s how ⬇️ At Datagrid, we made the call early to price with a consumption model. Fixed pricing models sound nice. But here’s why they break down fast: Per-seat: x Virtually limits who can adopt the solution. x It’s a nightmare for ops. Who owns what? Who’s still active? What happens when someone leaves? Per-project: x Projects end, usage drops, revenue disappears. x It’s built-in churn. So we took a different approach. We bundle usage by project, and track everything through a transparent credit system. It’s easy to explain, easy to trust, and has incentives on both sides: - Customers can start small and scale when it works - no bloated upfront costs. One user becomes five. Five become fifty. And so on. - Every action has a known cost. Run a web search? Pull a DocuSign envelope? Every action consumes credits. It’s transparent and fair. - Pricing is tied to value, not headcount or company size. If you're using the product more, it means it's working. And that’s what you’re paying for. The bottom line: When the product delivers, the customer will want to buy more. And when your customers grow, you win too. What pricing model do you think actually scales and keeps customers happy?

Seat-based pricing is slowly dying... but was THE pricing strategy of the past 10 years. It made sense: (1) Customers always grew their teams, so their software spend grew too. (2) Collaboration was the core value driver, and more seats meant more collaboration. (3) SaaS margins were high, so unlimited usage was viable. But that model is breaking down. Teams aren’t growing like they used to. Some are shrinking. AI features come with real costs—every query has a price tag. Subscription fatigue is real, and companies are scrutinizing every dollar. That’s why usage-based and hybrid pricing models are taking over. We’re seeing: -Credits (prepaid usage that depletes over time) -Subscription + overages (pay a base fee, plus per-unit costs) -Outcome-based pricing (pay per successful result, not per seat) Many companies are shifting to a more usage-based and less seat-based model (even if payment still happens as a subscription). The challenge? The most common billing systems weren’t built for this level of flexibility. Every company measures usage differently, which makes implementing new pricing hard. That’s why we’re building Lago—to make modern pricing models easier to implement, so you’re never stuck in a legacy billing system that slows you down. If you want to read our full breakdown, check out our latest Substack post here: https://lnkd.in/e3VZ6FdE