Are we pricing AI agents the wrong way?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how AI agents are being monetized, and I’m not convinced we’ve landed on the right model yet. Most of them are still packaged like traditional SaaS: monthly subscriptions, seat-based plans, or usage tiers.

But agents don’t really fit neatly into the “software tool” category.

When an agent is doing real work for a business, the value isn’t coming from access alone, It comes from how well it executes a task. That makes me wonder whether the better model, at least for some categories, is closer to outcome-based pricing. For example, per qualified lead or per resolved ticket

That framing feels easier for buyers to understand because it maps directly to business value.

At the same time, I can see why most founders avoid it. Outcome-based pricing is harder to operationalize, harder to measure, and introduces more complexity around attribution and expectations. So I understand why subscriptions are still the default.

Still, I can’t shake the feeling that we may be borrowing SaaS pricing logic for products that behave much more like digital labor.

Curious what others think: Are we pricing AI agents the wrong way?