Lesson 5 of 6
Pricing & distribution
7 min read
Normal software costs almost nothing to serve one more user. AI products don't — every reply costs you real money. That one fact reshapes how you price.
Every use has a cost
Each time someone uses your AI product, you pay the model's [API](glossary://api) bill for that use. So a flat monthly price can lose money on a heavy user: they pay once, but keep running up your costs. Watch the margin flip as usage climbs.
With a real cost per use, flat pricing quietly subsidizes your heaviest users. Usage-based pricing — or a fair-use cap — keeps each user profitable.
Getting to users
Distribution is how your product reaches people — and it's often the hard part, not the building. The cheap paths: ride a store people already browse (a GPT store, an app store), embed in a tool they already open every day, or grow through an audience and word of mouth. Being where the users already are beats a great product no one can find.
A product no one can find dies as surely as one no one wants. Plan distribution as carefully as the product itself.
Price to the value, not just the cost. If your product saves a professional an hour, it can be worth far more than the pennies of API it burns — cost sets your floor, value sets your price.
The shape of it
- —AI products cost real money per use, so flat pricing can bleed on heavy users.
- —Usage-based pricing or a fair-use cap keeps each user profitable.
- —Distribution — being where users already are — matters as much as the product.
Your AI tool charges one flat monthly fee, and a few power users run it constantly. What's likely happening — and a fix?
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