Glossary term
Usage-Based Pricing
Pricing tied to consumption — API calls, compute, queries; the model agent-friendly software has shifted toward.
Usage-Based Pricing ties revenue to actual consumption — API calls, compute used, queries run — rather than to a fixed seat count. The Closelook view is that this model aligns better with an agentic world, because an agent that does more work consumes more and pays more, decoupling revenue from human headcount. The shift toward usage-based pricing is how some software companies adapt to the seat-compression threat. See Work-as-a-Service 101.