Why your pricing model matters more than your price level.
Most teams ask: “Are we too expensive?”
A better question is: “Are we charging for the right thing, in the right way?”
Because your pricing model determines:
what buyers compare you to (per user, per workflow, per outcome)
how easy you are to understand and buy
whether revenue grows as customers get more value
whether margins hold up as usage scales.
This matters even more in the AI era.
If AI usage drives variable cost (tokens, compute, inference), a flat subscription can turn pricing into a gamble. You might win customers and lose money as adoption grows.
A good example is Replit. They combine a minimum monthly fee with included usage credits, then charge overages as customers consume more resources (compute, storage, deployments).
It’s a simple pattern: predictable commitment up front, clear allowance, then pay-as-you-go when usage goes beyond that.
That’s why it’s so important to get the pricing model right first.
Then price level becomes a tuning exercise, not a recurring argument.
For the full article on this topic, click below.
Let me know if you need any help with designing your ideal pricing model.
Kind regards
Mark Peacock
