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“This is not usage-based pricing or subscription pricing,” said VC firm OpenView in its second usage-based pricing report. These hybrid approaches require new tools, but which ones? Let’s explore. — Anna
Increasing Complex Pricing
As we learned from OpenView’s latest report earlier this week, pay-as-you-go pricing is on the rise, but it’s not meant to replace other models.
Indeed, more and more SaaS companies are billing their customers based on their service usage. However, this is often combined with other pricing approaches such as tiered subscriptions.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the latest example of this hybrid pricing approach. In addition to the free tier, we have introduced ChatGPT Plus. It’s a fairly straightforward subscription model starting at $20/month. However, the company also said it is “actively exploring options for low-cost plans, business plans and data packs.”
Data packs: This is a form of usage-based pricing, but it does not replace subscriptions. So ChatGPT joins a range of products with complex pricing.