Revenue design: Our vision for AI pricing and usage based billing

As AI agents change how software creates and captures value, pricing has become more complex, more dynamic, and far more strategic. It’s turned into a continuous system, rather than a one-time decision, as seats and tiers give way to usage, outcomes, and variability.

However, traditional revenue stacks weren’t designed to support this. They assume:

• Contracts are the source of truth
• Revenue is static and predictable
• Pricing changes happen infrequently

The result is:

• Pricing is an afterthought, rather than a strategic priority
• The lack of real-time visibility into usage or revenue prevents confident decision-making
• Finance, product, engineering, and GTM teams are misaligned and work out of sync
• Changing pricing takes months, not days
• There’s no way to safely test pricing before shipping

This disconnect between pricing strategy, execution, and data is what we call the broken relay race of pricing. Rigid systems and unclear processes prevent teams from moving forward, and the baton keeps getting dropped because teams don’t have a shared source of truth or a collaborative, organized way to make decisions.

Billing systems, including incumbent usage based billing systems, aren’t truly addressing this problem today.

A future where pricing is organized, purposeful, and data-driven

We believe every revenue team will have a unified platform to synchronize pricing decisions, with organized swim lanes that let everyone move the baton forward. Finance, product, engineering, and GTM will act on shared, real-time data. Strategic pricing will set the most innovative companies apart, becoming a living strategy that captures fair value while strengthening customer relationships.

Orb’s approach to revenue design: Beyond usage-based billing

Orb started as usage-based billing infrastructure. But as we partnered with rapidly growing AI companies, one thing became clear: billing was just the entry point. What companies actually needed was revenue design.

Revenue design is the ability to thoughtfully craft, model, simulate, and execute pricing strategies so that you have direct control over your revenue. Orb is built to help any company achieve this.

Orb’s approach to revenue design is a unified system that helps cross-functional revenue teams turn pricing into a competitive advantage. It solves the broken relay race of pricing by giving cross-functional revenue teams everything they need to automate busywork, execute pricing strategies with confidence, and grow revenue strategically. Here’s what it looks like:

• Revenue Graph connects every event, charge, and invoice in real-time, giving teams one source of truth for usage and revenue
• Billing engine for fast, flexible, and accurate usage-based billing
• Simulations test pricing against real usage data. Compare scenarios and see the impact before launch
• Finance workflows handle the workflows that used to take weeks and help keep you compliant
• Revenue recognition Gain confidence in your revenue reporting whether it’s end of month close, board prep or audit season
• Future-Ready Infrastructure is built for AI-era pricing and helps you experiment and evolve: from usage-based models and hybrid packages to dynamic pricing

Our customers see real impact

Orb is already driving significant revenue and cost savings for our customers.

Vercel eliminated the chaos between engineering, finance, and product, cutting billing launch time by 80% and creating true orchestration across the entire organization. LaunchDarkly cut engineering time spent on billing issues and slashed usage visibility from 8 hours to seconds. Now their team can focus on product, not invoices.

Turn pricing into your competitive advantage

Pricing is too important to remain a broken relay race, particularly in the AI economy. Revenue design is the answer, and organizations that understand and practice it can become brilliantly profitable. They’ll move faster, make informed and confident decisions, capture value more effectively, and build stronger customer relationships.

If you want to turn pricing into a growth lever for your company, contact us to see how Orb can support your revenue goals.