In this episode of the Get Paid podcast, Sofiia Shvets, CEO and Co-founder of Claid, explains why her company replaced traditional SaaS pricing with a credit-based model.

Sofiia shares the challenges of migrating customers, the benefits of usage-based monetization for AI products, and how the switch ultimately increased revenue per account by 50-60%.

The conversation also explores AI infrastructure costs, enterprise adoption challenges, and the future of agent-driven generative media.

When Subscription Pricing Breaks

Claid originally launched with a simple SaaS subscription model where users paid a monthly fee for access to generative media tools.

However, as the product expanded from three tools to more than twenty, pricing complexity exploded.

Different tools had different computational costs. Some customers only needed one feature. Enterprise clients needed flexibility to expand usage quickly.

“It was a monstrosity of the process.”

Hard limits across tiers made the product harder to use and harder to sell.

Why Credits Simplified Everything

Claid replaced subscription tiers with a credit-based pricing system.

Each operation now consumes credits based on its cost and complexity.

For enterprise buyers, this made pricing dramatically easier to understand. Customers could forecast usage, run experiments, and expand their workflows without renegotiating contracts.

“Here's the whole list of operations. They cost two, three, or five credits. The price of the credit is, I don't know, $1 or whatever. $5. Super easy. Easy math.”

Credits also allowed Claid to launch new tools without changing pricing plans.

The Short-Term Pain of Changing Pricing

Migrating to credits was not painless.

Existing customers initially complained about the introduction of limits where none existed before.

“We got a bunch of complaints from users.”

Some churn followed, but far less than expected.

New users, however, adapted immediately because credit pricing had already become common across AI tools.

The Result: 50–60% Revenue Growth per Account

Within three months of the transition, Claid saw a major shift.

Revenue per account increased by 50-60%.

The reason: the old pricing model had been limiting usage.

Customers could now scale their usage freely and purchase additional credit bundles when needed.

“It got more expensive, but it was more fair use.”

The new model aligned pricing with real product usage.

The Hidden Complexity of AI Monetization

Unlike traditional SaaS products, AI tools have real-time infrastructure costs.

Every request consumes GPU resources, and processing times vary depending on load and model complexity.

Claid operates a hybrid system:

Some models are hosted internally, others run through external APIs.

This makes margin forecasting far more complex than traditional SaaS.

“It’s hard to calculate, especially when you host models yourself.”

Advice to AI Founders

Sofiia’s biggest advice to founders building AI products:

Don’t obsess over getting monetization perfect on day one.

First, validate that users are willing to pay.

“Try to sell it in any way.”

Pricing can always evolve once product value is proven.

Companies Mentioned

Claid
Google
Black Forest Labs
Amazon
eBay
OLX
Lovable

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