The October answer
Founders most often enter through a business-unit or technology leader, while buyer-side respondents most often name the CEO as signer. To move into production, the product also needs workable data access, integration, cost reporting and credential controls. Model capability alone does not address those requirements.
What changed since Edition 2
No new pricing or buyer-owner instrument was collected, so those figures carry forward unchanged. New buyer-side evidence raises a practical issue for usage and outcome pricing: fewer than half of AI Leaders respondents have full real-time visibility into AI operating cost.
The pricing baseline
Usage pricing leads at 43 percent. Flat subscription and outcome pricing are level at 24, per-seat pricing is 20 and 8 percent are not yet charging. Percentages exceed 100 because respondents can name more than one model.
The doorway and the signature
Founders most often name a business-unit leader at 39 percent, followed by the CIO or CTO at 36 and finance at 28. In a separate buyer-side instrument, the CEO is the most frequently named signer. The instruments measure different stages and different populations; they are not a matched sales funnel.
The production requirement
Buyers report data access, compute, integration and inference cost as leading production bottlenecks. Founders selling agents should be ready to explain the identity model, cost model, data-access architecture and measurable workflow outcome during the sale.
October founder evidence
Pricing
Pricing model
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Usage-based | 63 | 43% |
| Flat subscription | 36 | 24% |
| Outcome-based | 35 | 24% |
| Per seat | 29 | 20% |
| Not charging yet | 12 | 8% |
Base 148; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
Usage pricing appears in 63 of 148 answers. Subscription and outcome pricing are nearly tied at 36 and 35, with per-seat pricing at 29. Because the question is multi-select, these are pricing components, not mutually exclusive company models.
Buying doorway
Enterprise buying doorway
| Answer | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Business-unit leader | 58 | 39% |
| CIO or CTO | 53 | 36% |
| CFO or finance | 41 | 28% |
| Other | 18 | 12% |
| Individual users or bottom-up | 16 | 11% |
| Still figuring it out | 6 | 4% |
Base 148; any mention, so shares can sum above 100 percent.
The business-unit leader leads at 39 percent, followed by the CIO or CTO at 36 and finance at 28. The buyer-side common instrument names the CEO as the most frequent signer, separating the role that opens the sale from the role that authorizes it.
Pricing by identifiable batch era
| YC batch classification | Base | Usage | Subscription | Outcome | Per seat | Not charging |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| YC 2024 to 2026 | 53 | 51% | 26% | 21% | 17% | 9% |
| Unclassified | 83 | 36% | 22% | 25% | 23% | 8% |
Any mention. Fifty-three respondents supplied a batch classified as 2024–2026, and 83 could not be classified from the supplied field. Twelve respondents fall into earlier batch eras; those groups are omitted because each is below the table's display floor.
Among the 53 respondents identifiable as YC 2024–2026, usage pricing reaches 51 percent. Eighty-three responses cannot be placed into a valid batch from the supplied field. Twelve respondents supplied an earlier batch, but each earlier-era group is too small to display. The available data therefore does not support a generational trend.
Production requirements on the buyer side
The buyer-side production instrument puts data access and quality first at 39 percent, ahead of compute and integration. An enterprise case should address data, identity, integration and operating cost alongside model capability.
Tested against the record
The founder baseline shows usage pricing leading; outcome pricing does not exceed subscriptions overall. October's separate cost-visibility data raises an implementation question for both usage and outcome models: whether buyers can reliably measure units consumed and results achieved.
What this means for founders
Founders should show what the agent accesses, how its identity is controlled, what a unit of work costs and which outcome the buyer can audit. These details make the production and pricing case easier for sponsors, technical reviewers and final signers to evaluate.
Questions this report answers
Which AI pricing model do founders use most?
Usage-based pricing leads at 43 percent (base 148, any mention).
Who is the most common enterprise buying doorway?
The business-unit leader leads at 39 percent, followed by the CIO or CTO at 36 percent and finance at 28 percent (base 148, any mention).
Who signs the purchase on the buyer side?
The CEO is the most-named signer at 49 percent (base 467, any mention).
Key citable facts
- Usage-based pricing is named by 43 percent of founders in the tracked baseline (base 148, any mention).
- The business-unit leader is the most-named buying doorway at 39 percent; the CIO or CTO follows at 36 and finance at 28 (base 148, any mention).
- The CEO is the most-named signer on the buyer side at 49 percent (base 467, any mention).
Methodology and honesty notes
Founder pricing and buyer-owner figures are carried forward from the latest comparable instrument and are not presented as October movement. The report is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Y Combinator. Respondents are deduplicated by email for each question; multi-select answers use any mention.
Related reading
Citation and editions
Suggested citation: Newlands, M. (2026). YC Founder AI Report, Edition 3. Open Future Forum, October 2026. This edition supersedes Edition 2, September 2026.
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