Outcome-Based Pricing Aligns Vendors as Partners

Brett Taylor believes the AI market is evolving toward autonomous agents that accomplish jobs independently, paired with outcome-based pricing models. "The whole market is gonna go towards agents. I think the whole market is going to go towards outcomes based pricing. It's just so obviously the correct way to build and sell software."

This shift represents a fundamental change in how software delivers value. Unlike traditional productivity tools where gains are difficult to measure, agents produce concrete, measurable outcomes. As Brett explains, "Now with an agent actually accomplishing a job, not only is it actually truly driving productivity in a very real way, but it's measurable as well."

Aligning Incentives Through Outcome-Based Pricing

The core principle behind outcome-based pricing is aligning vendor success directly with customer success. At Sierra, Brett's company doesn't charge for AI usage but for successful resolutions: "If the AI agent solves the customer's problem, they're happy with it, and you didn't have to pick up the phone, there's a pre-negotiated rate for that."

This approach transforms the vendor-customer relationship:

It creates genuine partnerships where both sides want the same outcome
It forces vendors to be extremely customer-centric
It makes value immediately apparent to procurement teams
It shifts focus from usage metrics to business results

As Brett notes, "Every technology company aspires to be a partner not a vendor, and I think at Sierra we are truly a partner to every single one of our customers because we're all aligned on what we want to achieve."

Implications for Leaders and Teams

For product teams, this perspective demands a shift in how success is measured. Instead of tracking engagement or usage, the focus must be on autonomous completion of valuable tasks. This requires:

Designing for autonomy rather than assistance
Building measurement systems that track outcomes, not just activity
Creating feedback loops that improve autonomous performance
Developing pricing models tied to specific business outcomes

For business leaders, this means rethinking how to evaluate software purchases. The question shifts from "What features does this have?" to "What specific outcomes can this deliver, and how will we measure them?"

Brett's experience suggests that while this approach requires more sophisticated systems thinking, it ultimately creates more value: "I think it's just a better version of the software industry. So I think it's right from first principles, it's right for procurement partners, and I think it's right for the world."