The rise of flexible credit models: should you embrace the trend?

Published on January 10, 2026

Salesforce, Dust, and HubSpot are reshaping how they charge for AI. Behind it lies a broader shift: traditional seat- and subscription-based models are evolving toward usage-based pricing, with flexible credits emerging as its most practical form. Our Simon-Kucher software experts explain what drives the trend, when credits fit your portfolio, and what they demand of you.

When GitHub launched Copilot in 2021, it made a choice that looked generous and turned out to be a very expensive one. Its AI coding assistant shipped as a flat user-based fee add-on with virtually no usage guardrails. Of course, developers loved it – and many used it far more than anyone had priced in.

The problem: every suggestion consumed compute that GitHub had to pay for. While GitHub charged around 20 dollars per seat, its most active users reportedly cost the company …

Flexible credit models

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