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A seat is a person with access, paid for whether or not they use the product. A meter is a count of what they do. A switch between them leaves the price level alone and changes the multiplier, which is why it looks free and why it is not: on the day it lands, every customer you already have is re-priced at today's use. Some pay more and will say so; most pay less and will say nothing. The growth a meter earns arrives over years, and the re-pricing arrives on the first invoice. By the time it reaches an agenda the switch has usually been argued from one number, that use is growing faster than seats, and that number starts the day after the base is re-priced. This pack turns it into two streams and a subtraction. What the seats bill today, growing with seats over the years compared, is what the seat earns. Today's revenue less what the switch gives back less the customers who leave, growing with use over the same years, is what the meter earns. The whole question reduces to the break-even day-one gap, how much the switch can give back to today's customers before the meter earns less than the seat, read against the shadow bill: every current customer billed under the proposed unit at today's use. The second distance is the catch-up year, the first year the meter's annual revenue passes the seat's. It stops on two halts: no one has run the shadow bill, and no one has measured use per customer from the product for a year.
What is the Usage Switch Strategy Pack
The Usage Switch Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: whether to price by the seat or by what is used, and what the switch costs in the year it is made. It is built around one organizing claim: a change in the unit of billing re-prices every customer you already have before it earns a dollar from any you add, and the switch is paid for in the year it lands. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, a metering model blank and worked, the moves at each position, nine sourced cases, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
a change in the unit of billing re-prices every customer you already have before it earns a dollar from any you add, so the question is what the year of the switch gives back against what the meter earns once use grows. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The break-even day-one gap — how much the switch can give back before the meter loses to the seat. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why usage-based pricing vs per seat is decided by the customers you already have
Not because anyone is hiding it. Because the number the switch is argued from starts too late. Use is growing faster than seats, and the forecast that says so begins the day after every customer you already have is re-priced at today's use. Some pay more and will say so; most pay less and will say nothing. The growth arrives over years and the re-pricing arrives on the first invoice.
What the base pays on that day is the shadow bill: every current customer under the proposed unit at today's use, against what they pay now. It needs use per customer measured from the product, which most seat-priced companies do not keep, so in most companies it has never been run and the meeting compares a forecast it has to a bill it does not.
This pack turns that into arithmetic. What the seats bill today, growing with seats over the years compared, is what the seat earns. Today's revenue less what the switch gives back less the customers who leave, growing with use over the same years, is what the meter earns. Then the whole decision reduces to one figure: the break-even day-one gap, how much the switch can give back before the meter earns less than the seat.
What is in the Usage Switch Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: why the switch is paid for by the customers you already have, the arithmetic, the endings that actually happen, and the halts.
- Concept deck. Twenty-two slides for a board or a pricing review, with nine sourced cases and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
- Metering model. Eleven growth rates in use across the columns, in both directions, and the break-even day-one gap that decides it.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next switch cheaper to judge.
- Case studies. Nine sourced cases — one reversed within a year, one deleted the old unit, three left it standing, one removed a meter, one built a meter whose line has not appeared, and two borrowed and labeled.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: what the seats bill, how fast use is growing, the shadow bill, who would leave, and what the switch costs once.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line.
- Practitioner manual. What the seats bill, the reason in a number, the shadow bill, the leaving share, a year of measured use, the board paper, six failure modes.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Usage Switch Strategy Pack is for
A chief executive being asked to approve a switch that has been argued from growth for two quarters and billed for none of them; a chief financial officer who has budgeted the billing system and not the first-year fall; a chief revenue officer whose largest customers are the ones whose bill would rise; a head of pricing setting a rate per unit with no shadow bill to test it against; a head of product whose dashboard is the only measurement of use the company has; a board member reading a forecast with nothing beside it; a private equity operating partner underwriting a business whose revenue is about to change shape; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a forecast. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case a company billing $84m a year by the seat, with seats growing 4 percent and use growing 15, runs the shadow bill and finds today's customers would pay $63.0m under the meter. That is the fact the meeting did not have. The seat wins by $25.9m over five years, the meter catches up in year four, and the break-even day-one gap is 19.4 percent against a shadow bill that gives back 25, which puts the answer in the hands of whoever sets the price per unit rather than whoever forecasts growth.
Four limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The model does not forecast the growth in use; that figure is your own measurement, and the Model tab sweeps it in both directions because no one can settle it in advance. It treats the switch as one event, the whole base moving in the year it lands, which is a simplification stated on the page. It compares revenue rather than margin. And it does not price what a known willingness to re-price the base does to the next renewal. Seven of the nine cases are read for a change or a deliberate keeping of the unit, four of those date the change and nothing after it, and two are borrowed from outside the decision and labeled; the framework content is the larger share, and every page marks which is which.
Questions about the Usage Switch Strategy Pack
- What numbers does the model produce?
- Two headlines and twelve supporting rows. The break-even day-one gap, which is how much the switch can give back to today's customers before the meter earns less than the seat at your forecast of use, and the catch-up year, the first year the meter's annual revenue passes the seat's. Around them: what today's customers would pay under the meter, what the switch gives back, what leaves, the first-year fall, what the year of the switch costs, what each unit earns over the years compared, the difference, and the distance between your shadow bill and the break-even. The Model tab sweeps growth in use in both directions, and one row turns from No to Yes at the point where the meter earns the seat back.
- Our use is growing much faster than our seats. Should we switch?
- Not on that fact alone, and that is the whole point of the pack. Use growing faster than seats and a switch that pays are different questions. In the worked case use grows 15 percent against 4 for seats, and the seat still wins by $25.9m over five years, because the switch gives back 25 percent of today's revenue on the first invoice and 15 percent growth earns back only 19.4 of it. The meter does not pass the seat's annual revenue until year four.
- We can't measure use per customer yet.
- Then the shadow bill cannot be run and the switch is a year away whatever the meeting decides. The wizard halts on it, the model halts on it, and the manual sets out how to measure use from the product in the unit you intend to bill. It is the cheapest reform in the pack and the one almost no seat-priced company has made.
- Does this cover switching from usage to seats?
- Yes, with the labels swapped. Two of the nine cases run that way: Oracle moved Java from usage metrics to a per-employee subscription in 2023 and deleted the old units, and HubSpot moved from a flat fee per Hub to seats in 2024 for new customers only. The model reads the unit you bill today against the unit you propose, in either direction.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced cases: Unity's Runtime Fee, Salesforce's three Agentforce prices, HubSpot's move to seats, Microsoft 365 Copilot's seat floor, Oracle's Java subscription, Cloudflare's unmetered attack protection, Deere's per-acre activations, and, borrowed from the airlines and labeled as borrowed, Ryanair, and Pan Am. Each is dated, read through what was done to the unit and what happened after, and each states what its evidence does not establish. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. One payment, one download, sixteen files, yours to keep and to use inside your organization under the license included in the pack.
- What is the Usage Switch Strategy Pack?
- The Usage Switch Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: Whether to price by the seat or by use, and what the switch costs in the year it is made? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, metering model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: a change in the unit of billing re-prices every customer you already have before it earns a dollar from any you add, so the question is what the year of the switch gives back against what the meter earns once use grows. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Usage Switch Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Usage Switch Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: why the switch is paid for by the customers you already have, the arithmetic, the endings that actually happen, and the halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-two slides for a board or a pricing review, with nine sourced cases and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. Metering model (Excel, blank and worked) — Eleven growth rates in use across the columns, in both directions, and the break-even day-one gap that decides it. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next switch cheaper to judge. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced cases — one reversed within a year, one deleted the old unit, three left it standing, one removed a meter, one built a meter whose line has not appeared, and two borrowed and labeled. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: what the seats bill, how fast use is growing, the shadow bill, who would leave, and what the switch costs once. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — What the seats bill, the reason in a number, the shadow bill, the leaving share, a year of measured use, the board paper, six failure modes. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- How is the Usage Switch Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.