Credit Based Pricing - how companies are managing credits across GBB tiers

Written By Steven Forth

Steven Forth is a principle at Ibbaka and valueIQ. Connect on LinkedIn

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)

  • Tiered Good-Better-Best (GBB) pricing is widely used in B2B SaaS, and its adoption is growing for agentic AI and generative AI applications, with about 30% of AI agents showing visible GBB pricing.​

  • Credit-based pricing lets users buy a "bucket" of credits to consume on actions, enabling alignment between price paid and value delivered across both SaaS products and agentic AI.​

  • The blend of GBB tiering and credit-based pricing allows companies to align credit values at each tier, enabling differentiated offers tailored to customer personas and use cases.​

  • Effective integration requires careful design:

    • Clearly define the strategy and the role of each tier for growth, upsell, and cross-sell.​

    • Model value by mapping credits to user actions rather than just features.​

    • Make thoughtful choices on credits per tier, price per credit, actions that consume credits, and rules for credit rollover, incremental purchases, and pooling.​

  • Higher tiers may get more credits, better pooling, more generous rollover, or lower per-credit prices, incentivizing upgrades and supporting scalable growth.​

  • Properly designed credit-based GBB improves pricing flexibility, enhances upsell and cross-sell, enables clearer revenue recognition, and supports innovation as AI-driven products evolve.​

  • Success comes from aligning credit usage and packaging rules closely with customer needs and product value, maximizing customer lifetime value, and future-proofing revenue as agentic AI matures.

Tiered or Good Better Best (GBB) pricing is common in B2B SaaS, especially among product-led growth companies. valueIQ is developing a Pricing Analyst agent, and as part of the work on this we have processed more than 2,000 pricing pages. Approximately 70% of them use some flavour of GBB pricing. The affection for GBB pricing has carried over to applications and agent-built on generative AI. GBB is not as dominant here, but it is quite common, accounting for about 30% of agents with visible pricing pages.

At the same time, credit-based pricing models are becoming widely adopted by generative AI applications. This is true for foundation models, vibe coding platforms, agentic AI and even the agents being used to complement existing applications. Ibbaka has been doing a lot of work in this area and has shared some of our insights.

Let’s start with a few definitions.

Tiered or Good Better Best Pricing Definition: A three-tier packaging model that segments customers into distinct tiers, each with differentiated features, capabilities, and price points. Customers self-select based on their needs and budget, with clear feature progression and upgrade paths between tiers. Each tier targets a specific customer persona or use case, providing value alignment and natural price fencing through feature access and support levels.

Credit-Based Pricing Definition: A credit-based pricing model is a pricing system where users purchase a bucket of credits in advance, which are then consumed as they execute actions or receive results from a product or AI agent. Each action a user takes has a predefined credit cost, allowing for alignment between the value delivered to the customer and the price paid for that value.

Applying credit-based pricing to Good Better Best packaging models

One way to think about this is as a concept blend. This is a powerful way of taking two different approaches and combining them to create something new. You can learn more about this in Some innovation patterns from concept blending.

Concept blend of GBB Tiered Pricing and Credit Based Pricing generated by Ibbaka, November 24, 2025.

The blend of GBB packaging and credit-based pricing works quite well, especially when done in the context of value-based pricing.

In most GBB packaging designs, value is meant to grow across tiers (this is not the only way to design tiered packaging, but it is one common way). Credits can be aligned with value so that each credit has roughly the same value, no matter where or how it is used.

Design choices when applying credit-based pricing to Good Better Best packaging models

Designing credit-based pricing for tiered GBB packaging involves a series of design choices. These are presented linearly, but there are feedback loops between each.

Set a strategy

Align with the growth strategy and go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

Answer the following questions:

  • How does each tier contribute to the strategy?

  • What is the role of each tier?

  • How are the tiers meant to interact?

  • How are upsell and cross-sell meant to work?

In some GBB models, the intention is to attract a buyer into an introductory tier and then upsell them. In other cases, the goal is to sell the buyer the most appropriate package and only change the package when the buyer’s situation changes.

Build a foundation

Build a value model for the application. Apply that model to action and credit design. The goal is that each credit has approximately the same value across different possible actions. This is discussed in more detail in How granular should pricing models get?

Tier design choices

Decide on the following:

  • Confirm role of each tier

  • Define actions that can be taken in each tier (think in terms of user actions rather than features and functionality; credit consumption is triggered by user actions)

  • Draw a pricing curve that estimates how the price will change per tier (it is important to visualize this)

Credit design choices

You need to decide on the following:

  • How many credits per tier? Generally, the number of credits included goes up as one moves from Good to Better to Best, but in some designs, the number of credits is held constant, and the actions that can be taken or the actions that consume credits change from tier to tier.

  • Price per credit per tier. This is sometimes held constant, but more often the price per credit goes down from tier to tier, giving buyers an incentive to upgrade.

  • Actions that consume credits. In some designs there are actions that consume credits at lower tiers but do not consume credits at higher tiers. This is especially common for Free or Trial tiers, where many companies are charging credits for all actions.

  • Rollover rules. Rollover rules address what happens when credits are not used up during the period for which they are valid. It is important that the credits expire; otherwise, revenue recognition becomes impossible. Rollover rules often become more generous for higher tiers, again as a way to encourage upsell.

  • Incremental credit purchase. Quite often, users run out of credits before the end of the month (or whatever other term is being used. In some cases, one can buy additional credits to tide you through. In other cases on has to upgrade to get the additional credits or wait until a new month starts. In some designs, one can only purchase incremental credits for higher tiers.

  • Pooling rules. Pooling rules let an organization share credits between users. These can range from zero percent (no pooling) to 100% (all credits can be transferred between users) and everything in between. Quite often, pooling rules become more generous as one moves up from Good to Better to Best.

Conclusion

Credit-based pricing, when thoughtfully integrated with Good-Better-Best (GBB) tiered models, offers B2B SaaS and agentic AI companies a powerful framework to align product value with customer needs while enabling scalable growth strategies. Organizations that adopt this approach benefit from enhanced pricing flexibility, improved upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and precise revenue recognition, all of which are especially important as generative AI and agentic technologies reshape the SaaS market landscape.​

The key to success lies in careful design across multiple dimensions—aligning credits with user actions, optimizing tier-specific offers, and calibrating rules for rollover, pooling, and incremental purchases. By strategically blending credits and tiers, SaaS leaders can better address evolving customer requirements, create incentive paths for upgrades, and maximize expansion revenue in a competitive, fast-evolving environment.​

A well-realized credit-based GBB model is not just about monetization; it’s about unlocking new innovation patterns, increasing customer lifetime value, and future-proofing revenue streams as agentic AI adoption accelerates.

Navigating the new pricing environment brought by AI agents? Contact us @ info@ibbaka.com

Steven Forth
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How granular should credit pricing models get?