Resolution-Based Pricing Model
by Eoghan McCabe • Co-founder and CEO at Intercom
Eoghan McCabe is the co-founder and CEO of Intercom, a customer service platform. He successfully navigated a high-stakes turnaround of the late-stage SaaS company by pivoting aggressively to an AI-first, agent-based model, reversing stagnation and achieving massive growth.
🎙️ Episode Context
Eoghan McCabe details the aggressive, high-risk transformation of Intercom from a plateauing legacy SaaS business to a hyper-growth AI agent company. He discusses the necessity of 'Founder Mode'—using top-down, authoritarian decision-making to force cultural resets, rewrite values, and execute bold pricing strategies. The conversation explores the existential threat AI poses to SaaS, the mechanics of outcome-based pricing for AI agents, and the psychological toll of radical corporate restructuring.
Problem It Solves
Solves the friction of selling AI agents to customers who are skeptical of paying for digital labor or unsure of the AI's efficacy compared to humans.
Framework Overview
A pricing strategy that shifts from paying for access (seats) or usage (messages) to paying strictly for successful outcomes, de-risking the adoption for the buyer.
🧠 Framework Structure
Price on Outcome, Not Access: Charge ...
Define the 'Kill Threshold': Determin...
Decouple Price from Cost: Do not use ...
Align Incentives: Ensure the vendor o...
When to Use
When launching AI agents or automation products where trust in quality is the primary barrier to adoption.
Common Mistakes
Pricing based on current high inference costs (which will drop) or creating complex tiered systems that confuse the buyer about what they are paying for.
Real World Example
Intercom launched Fin with a flat fee of $0.99 per resolution. If the AI agent talks to a user but fails to resolve the issue, the customer pays $0.
We wanted our revenue to be 100% aligned with the value that they attained... If someone is not prepared to pay 99 cent for us to rapidly and elegantly solve their customer's problem, we need to wrap this up.
— Eoghan McCabe