Almost nobody runs pure pay as you go, and you probably should not either. What actually works is hybrid: a platform fee that gives you predictable revenue and a floor, plus a consumption layer on top that grows with the customer. Roughly two in five software companies now run some version of this. The mechanics are where it gets real. You need to meter events reliably from day one, decide whether unused commitment rolls over or expires, price overages above the committed rate so committing is rewarded, and give customers usage visibility and alerts so the bill is never a surprise. Move to it when your value genuinely scales with something the customer does, not because it is what AI companies do. And be honest that you are trading forecastability for expansion, which your finance function will feel first.
3 hand-picked resources, 1 India-specific, 3 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it Kills the false choice. Poyar shows that most usage-based businesses are actually hybrid, walks seven real variations (GitHub, Clay, Shopify, Intercom, Slack), and names the real enemy: inflexible pricing tied to access rather than to what the customer does.
From Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar 15 min read
Open growthunhinged.com →Why we picked it The implementation half. Poyar's framing that moving from subscriptions to usage is as big a shift as moving from on-prem to SaaS is the warning to take seriously before you tell your board you are switching next quarter.
From Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar 15 min read
Open kylepoyar.substack.com →Why we picked it Before you meter anything you have to pick what to meter. Sethi's frequency versus importance grid, worked through with Clevertap, is the clearest method we have seen for finding the unit that grows with the customer's value rather than with your cost.
From SeedToScale (Accel India) by Dr. Ajay Sethi 16 min read
Open seedtoscale.com →How pricing and packaging reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Money, pricing & model, our Starting Up track.
The same ground, over in Money, pricing & unit economics, our D2C track.
