After attending the recent TSIA conference, our team was left with a takeaway we weren’t expecting. Practically every session and conversation touched on one theme—now that so many firms either rely on AI or have AI adoption on the roadmap, how do we price its value?
It’s the same question we at BigTime have been talking about all year, so it’s refreshing to see so many leaders joining the conversation. AI is quickly becoming table stakes for professional services firms. Many firms have adopted (or are adopting) AI tools to stay competitive and deliver work more efficiently. But if you’re adding value to how you deliver services, how can you communicate that to your clients? And what does that look like in your billing model?
Adjusting your pricing is one part of that—and it’s a topic that our team has been discussing for quite some time. After joining the conversation at TSIA, I wanted to share five key takeaways about how leading firms are thinking about pricing in the era of AI.
1. Pricing Based On Value—Not Just Resources
Today, most PS firms price in one of two ways (or a combination of both): time and materials or fixed fee. That’s still the case, even as AI changes internal operations—but it might not be for long.
AI changes the fundamental way we calculate value. By the old logic of time and materials billing, projects that require more intensive resources are also more valuable. Time and materials billing rewards effort, whereas AI reduces manual steps. T&M billing models don’t tend to play well with AI workflows, as they can inadvertently penalize more efficient delivery.
But speed is an asset we are selling—and just like VIPs waiting in the fast lane, our customers might be upcharged for quicker service.
One theory from our team at BigTime: top firms will start looking away from T&M and towards models that reward results instead of effort. This could look like:
- Fixed-fee engagements with premium tiers for speed or impact
- Milestone or outcome-based billing tied to deliverables
- Credit-based “services wallets” clients can cash in as needed
With more services firms looking for ways to maximize the ROI of AI, it seems inevitable billing will respond. These approaches link billing to business value, which could prove to be a more stable metric for AI-driven services.
2. Building Continuous Engagement Instead of One-Off Projects
At TSIA, we heard a lot about firms pivoting from services to subscriptions. In other words, firms are looking for ways to continuously engage clients, instead of delivering a single large project. This is a major play to capitalize on AI’s efficiency. You don’t have to worry about being underpaid for rapid service if you’re already on the payroll.
The most successful way to do that that we’ve seen so far is to build smaller bodies of work, focused on highly specific outcomes. This could mean breaking a large piece of work into individual milestones, with plenty of opportunities to expand or adjust the engagement as work is delivered. It could also mean more firms relying on retainer fees and stepping up as ongoing consultants.
Another approach we heard about at TSIA: some firms are using token or credit systems to let clients build their services. This is a very customizable approach that can keep clients engaged and even allow them to self-serve, effectively replacing a traditional SOW.
3. Redesigning Service Portfolios
While AI is forcing firms to revisit billing models, some are also taking the opportunities to rethink their whole service catalogs.
There are a lot of ways to think about this. One is to take value-based pricing a step further and actually sell an outcome, rather than a service. This could make it easier for some firms to handle tricking scoping conversations—you’re not necessarily pricing hours of work, you’re pricing a result.
Of course, there are risks to this approach, since the onus is on you to deliver the desired outcome. If you’re a BigTime Services CPQ user, our team is available to help update your services catalogs and think through what makes sense.
But if you’re confident in your ability to sell an end state, there are definite upsides. Building your services catalog this way gets you away from obsessing over hourly rates and scraping together margin. It’s also a major opportunity to step back from extremely complicated SOW processes (although if you’re like most firms and still handling long SOW approvals, BigTime Services CPQ can help with that).
4. AI Forecasting to Improve AI Pricing
As AI becomes increasingly integrated into professional service offerings, we’re faced with forecasting demand for services that have never been sold before. That’s not easy, but it is another area where AI can help.
At BigTime, we’re building intelligent CPQ capabilities that use data to guide pricing decisions. We help firms:
- Analyze historical pricing by client type or industry
- Estimate effort based on project scope, skills, and timeline
- Recommend pricing models that balance margin, win rate, and client fit
This kind of data-driven pricing strategy gives us a balanced foundation in territory that can feel unstable. That’s especially important as we share these new pricing models with clients. We’re establishing new ways of thinking about value, and it’s vital that we take the time to build transparency and trust.
5. Historical Pricing Models Won’t Disappear Overnight
It’s not time to throw your traditional pricing models out the window just yet. At TSIA, keynote speakers shared that a vast majority of professional services firms are still pricing based on basic controllable costs. Most are not yet moving to a completely value-based fee.
That being said, the number of PS orgs integrating some form of value-based pricing has grown 10% in the past year, from just 28% of firms to 39%. Leaders are looking to an outcome-driven future. That’s the impact of AI, and firms are likely to feel it, whether they’re integrating AI services or not.
Evolve your AI-driven sales process with BigTime Services CPQ
AI is transforming how services are sold, priced, and billed. If your firm is investing in AI, your quote-to-cash process should evolve accordingly.
BigTime Services CPQ helps firms modernize pricing and proposal workflows, reduce SOW friction, and test new billing models that make sense for AI-driven services.
Want to see what that looks like in practice? Book a 20-minute consultation with our team and we’ll walk through it together.
