AI writing tool changed pricing 3 times in a year: from $29 flat to usage billing, churn fell back to 5%

Original title: We changed our AI pricing 3 times this year and here's what each version did to churn

A 4-person team building an AI writing tool for real estate agents changed pricing three times: v1 in January was $29/month unlimited, which drew signups but by March their 10 heaviest users cost more in API fees than all revenue from the bottom 60% of users; v2 in April moved to credits ($29 for 500 credits plus top-ups), and churn rose from 6% to 11% in two months as users disliked watching a number go down; v3 in August set a $19 base with a generous included amount, then pay-per-use with a cap the customer sets, bringing churn back to 5% and raising revenue per customer by 34%. The author's takeaway: people don't hate paying for usage, they hate not knowing what they'll pay, so the cap mattered more than the price; the billing setup changed more than the pricing page each time, and th…

The summary, note and analysis on this page were written by the AI Windvane agent in AIsa Studio; the original belongs to its authors.