There is a growing sense of confusion and uncertainty among buyers when it comes to pricing for customer experience (CX) and contact center technology. Pricing does become more complex when technology innovates, creating broader options for mixing and matching features or more choices of the types of platforms people can use. In this industry, conditions have changed so quickly that the array of options is starting to hinder long-term planning. I suspect it will also force buyers to make choices that don’t necessarily align with their operational goals.
This is why we are seeing the growth of outcome-based or resolution-based pricing, which is closely related to usage-based pricing. All of which co-exist with seat-based deals. What happens when buyers need combinations of tools under a single platform, but the tools are usually metered differently?
As software suppliers bundle more features (and modules), they often end up putting a variety of consumption models and service tiers in front of the buyer, sometimes in ways that make meaningful comparisons difficult. Imagine the complexity of trying to determine whether a low, per-agent cost model for something like contact center as a service (CCaaS) is going to balloon once you factor in add-ons like WEM or analytics. And then the stakes are raised with artificial intelligence (AI) tools that are measured by usage.
The same phenomenon occurs in reverse when you consider starting from the CRM end of the CX stack, with per-user pricing augmented by transaction pricing for things like
confusion will cause many contact center buyers to reduce project scope or delay adopting enhancements, potentially missing benefits from the most innovative AI technologies.
So, you end up with buyers spending more time than ever trying to decipher proposals, validate ROI assumptions and ensure they aren’t locking themselves into models that will become cost-prohibitive as their CX strategy evolves.
The reason I raise this is twofold: first, because buyers raise this as an issue in almost every conversation I have, often expressing a need to focus on total costs (as opposed to the separate costs for each module or add-on). And second, because it represents a distinct opportunity for software providers to stand out from the crowd and use pricing as a differentiator. Some providers are using resolution/outcome-based pricing as a way of possibly cutting through the noise; I think this is clever, and beneficial to buyers as an option. But it doesn’t provide the clarity needed in more complex deployments where tools from multiple disciplines are bundled together.
The paradox here is that even though innovation leads to more complex pricing, one would also expect pricing to become clearer the more mature technologies become—and we’re dealing here with some of the most mature tools in contact center and CRM tech. So, we have a bizarre smorgasbord of options across tools that are supposedly becoming more integrated en route to enterprise CX stacks.
CCaaS providers, for example, may focus on named or tiered seat pricing, onto which is layered optional WEM or quality-related tools (admittedly a long-standing pairing), atop which you find AI event pricing, all with a possible commit and drawdown model sitting behind the overall. Or consider how hyperscaler CCaaS works now: heavy on the consumption pricing (around minutes or transactions), along with limitless potential add-ons for things like transcription, analytics and access to large language models (LLMs). Seat fees might or might not enter the equation.
How about Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) with your CCaaS? That’s per-seat and telephony bundles with added contact center tiers, and digital channels (and AI) as add-ons.
Confused yet? Maybe you want to focus on CRM as the foundational purchase in your CX stack. Be ready for per-user pricing, plus extra (based on either capacity, number of users or transactions) for things like messaging, knowledge or automation support. And don’t worry, your connected CCaaS is also an add-on that potentially brings in a second pricing overlay.
What I recommend to any provider in this space is to examine pricing across the board, including bundles that incorporate partners and add-ons of various stripes. Even if you cannot simplify the nitty-gritty of the pricing plan, you can help buyers with better tools and models that help them better see into the future.
As AI moves from informational to actionable via agentic automations, adoption is going to depend on buyers knowing in their guts that the investment is going to pay off in cost savings and operational performance. For that to happen, it’s going to be essential to fortify messaging around pricing, with explanations for why different things are priced using different schema.
And if you are a buyer, my recommendation is pretty straightforward: leverage your buying power to insist on clarity and transparency. Clearly the bigger you are, the more power you have, but know this—all of these toolsets are converging into expansive, multi-function, multi-departmental platforms. Providers want to—need to—lock you into long-term partnerships. My sense is that many of them, especially those that are dependent on the mid-market buyer, will play ball when those buyers push back and demand integrated pricing, clarity across products and longer-term commitments.
Regards,
Keith Dawson