Does usage-based pricing require a new growth infrastructure stack? • TechCrunch

O

Welcome to TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly newsletter about startups and markets. It is inspired by the TechCrunch+ daily column from which it takes its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Register here.

“It’s neither usage-based pricing nor subscription-based pricing,” venture capital firm OpenView wrote in its second report on the state of usage-based pricing. These hybrid approaches call for new tools, but which ones? Let’s explore. — Anne

Complex pricing on the rise

As we learned earlier this week in OpenView’s latest report, usage-based pricing is increasing, but not replacing other models.

Of course, more and more SaaS companies are charging their customers based on how they use the service. But it often comes in combination with other pricing approaches, such as tiered subscriptions.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the latest example of this hybrid pricing approach. In addition to its free tier, it introduced ChatGPT Plus, a fairly simple subscription model starting at $20 per month. But the company also said it was “actively exploring options for lower cost plans, business plans and data packs”.

Data packs: This would be a form of usage-based pricing, but would not replace subscriptions. This means that ChatGPT would join the growing line of complex priced products.