So the great “AI Upsell” in SaaS and B2B may be over before it’s really truly begun.
As AI began to take off in B2B, many rushed to charge substantially more for their “AI” — on top of already high per seat prices. But even as they did, it wasn’t clear it would stick:
- Salesforce has closed many AgentForce AI deals … but AgentForce seemed to be mostly bundled it. It didn’t drive up deal sizes.
- Zendesk and other leaders in contact center charge more, but at the same time, see seat contraction from more AI and less humans. So deal sizes overall may not go up.
- Monday is including 500 free AI credits per month
Can SaaS and B2B vendors really charge even more for AI … when it’s become core? And we’re already paying $15-$200 a month for a seat?
I personally didn’t think this would stick, and Atlassian is one of the first to say the same. It’s now including it’s AI platform Rovo at no additional cost for all but the biggest power users using the most AI:
AI has gone from a curiosity to a core part of many B2B amd SaaS apps, and then trend is rapidly accelerating.
You can try to charge more, but if the competition isn’t — you’re going to likely lose. And if it’s core to the product itself … can you really charge more ultimately? Probably … not.
