The generational read
Founders from W24 and earlier price by usage (52 percent) and flat subscription (32) and almost never per seat (8). The 2025 and 2026 batches price on outcomes at 35 and 29 percent, more than double the older group. Companies founded into the agent era priced for agents from the start.
The Seat Split
Founders name the buying doorway three ways: business-unit leader 39 percent, CIO or CTO 36, CFO 28. Operators say the CEO signs at 47 and the CFO at 34, rising to 43. The 2026 batches sell to the CTO first, at 48 percent. The newest founders are furthest from the signature.
Outcome pricing is sold to the wrong seat
Founders selling to the CTO price on outcomes at 38 percent; founders selling to the CFO at 27. Outcome pricing is a promise about measured value, made to the seat that evaluates the technology rather than the seat that measures the value.
Four vertical playbooks
Fintech prices by usage at 70 percent and sells to the CFO at 52. Enterprise software is the outcome-pricing lab at 47. Healthcare enters through the business unit with finance at 13. Consumer has not chosen an owner.
What it means for the founder
Price for the seat that signs, not the one that evaluates. The doorway is not the signature; a motion that ends at the business unit ends at a pilot. And the customer's Optimism Gap is your renewal risk: the CEO who bought expects payback in six months, the CFO who renews expects it in six to twelve.
Who should read it
Who should read it: Founders pricing and selling AI into enterprises, investors reading pricing model as a proxy for product vintage, and procurement teams who want to know what terms are available.
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Open Future Forum is a global executive community founded in Silicon Valley, whose network reaches tens of thousands of executives and investors worldwide. Its research program, including the Executive AI Leverage Report and the role editions of the Enterprise AI Buying and Budget Index, is built on first-party survey data from executives attending Open Future Forum events.