Inference Costs
The AI suite of product features is making SaaS Gross Margin look much closer to Service-based business models.
Software used to benefit from a nearly negligible cost of fulfillment. Now it must account for multiple COGS levers that scale with usage.
In order to keep your offering priced sustainably, inference costs need enough room to flex with the introduction of new models & use cases.
To do this, calculate your expected customer volume first. Translate the volume to their token usage and relative cost of the model used. Finally, include any pricing for API calls or compute time. Stress test where your pricing breaks relative to user behavior or model consumption.
PricingAI