12 Steps to Creating an Outcome-based Pricing Plan

Episode notes

Everyone says seat-based pricing is dead, but do you actually have an outcome you can charge for? In episode #377, Ben Murray breaks down the 12 steps to building an outcome-based pricing plan, drawn from analyzing real, live outcome-based pricing pages and the fine print buried in their terms and conditions. Outcome pricing is complex to design and even harder for customers to understand: when are they charged, and where is the failure point at which they aren't? For SaaS founders and CFOs weighing a move to outcome- or agentic-AI pricing, getting the unit, success criteria, and spend controls right is the difference between a model customers trust and one that creates budget anxiety and billing disputes. How to decide whether you even have a billable outcome, and why a completed customer result is not the same as an activity. How to define the outcome unit and write success criteria twice, with real examples from Intercom's Fin, Help Scout's AI Answers, and Zendesk's 72-hour resolution window. Why failure forgiveness is a conversion tool, not just billing logic, and how measurement windows protect you from outcomes that unravel later.