By Guy Marion, Chief Marketing Officer, Chargebee
UK financial services firms are racing to harness the power of artificial intelligence – a trend reflected across sectors. From automating risk assessments and reducing fraud losses to accelerating KYC checks and optimising credit decision-making, AI is transforming how institutions operate, manage compliance, and unlock new revenue streams.
And although the sector is ahead of the curve in adopting AI technologies, recent research reveals a surprising blind spot it shares with many other industries: AI monetisation.
Chargebee’s 2025 State of Recurring Revenue & Monetization report – based on insights from over 470 subscription businesses in the UK and US – shows that 77% of companies are prioritising AI investment this year. However, many firms still struggle to translate AI-driven capabilities into pricing models that accurately reflect both the underlying cost structure of these products and the value they deliver.
Pitfalls of traditional pricing
Unlike traditional SaaS products, where scaling services add little marginal cost, AI-driven offerings come with substantial computing expenses, from large language model queries to real-time data processing. Legacy pricing models often fail to account for these new cost structures, creating hidden margin erosion. In short, firms are delivering more value, but not pricing accordingly.
This is where pricing strategy makes – or breaks – AI profitability. Chargebee research shows that 58% of companies now see pricing optimisation as a top revenue driver, on par with product diversification. Yet only 14% of high-growth UK companies use pricing to increase deal size, compared to 80% in the US. This suggests UK firms are leaving money on the table, missing opportunities to better align pricing with the value they deliver.
Advantages of hybrid pricing models
One such opportunity lies in mixed, or hybrid, pricing models, one of the report’s standout trends. While 75% of companies still include subscription elements, the top performers are layering in usage- and outcome-based pricing to better match customer value.
Subscription elements give clients budget predictability. Usage-based pricing charges customers according to how much of a service they consume, while outcome-based pricing ties cost to a specific, measurable result, such as the number of chatbots resolving queries without human help or transactions that remain fraud-free.
Companies using hybrid models are more than twice as likely to see improved profit margins compared to those relying solely on usage-based billing (67% vs. 32%). Hybrid pricing also offers flexibility for different customer segments. Enterprise buyers can still benefit from predictable subscriptions, while smaller customers are charged based on consumption or outcomes.
By aligning cost with value, hybrid pricing creates stickier relationships and drives deeper engagement.
AI monetisation best practices
What can UK financial services firms do to turn AI investments into measurable value and close the monetisation gap in the process?
- Rethink value metrics
Move beyond flat fees and per-seat pricing. Instead, identify the outcomes customers care about, whether that’s faster onboarding, fewer false positives, or higher compliance scores, and consider how pricing can reflect these outcomes.
- Test, don’t guess
High-growth companies are nearly three times more likely to run continuous pricing experiments than their slower-growing peers. Whether through cohort-based A/B testing or controlled rollouts, testing pricing in real time enables faster optimization and de-risks major changes. Pricing agility creates a competitive advantage, not just your AI.
- Invest in infrastructure
The challenge for many firms isn’t coming up with pricing ideas but turning those ideas into action. Complex usage measurement, billing integration, and financial reporting can block new models. Investing in billing platforms that support multi-dimensional pricing can unlock innovation at scale.
- Cross-functional pricing
Pricing shouldn’t live in a silo. Typically, the executive team leads pricing decisions, with 29% indicating the C-suite owns it, nearly double the share of Finance (17%), Sales (15%), or RevOps (14%). However, Chargebee’s research found that top performers treat it as a shared responsibility across executive, finance, product, and customer teams, ensuring decisions are both strategic and customer-informed.
The bottom line
The research shows the gap between growth leaders and laggards is widening, and not just because of AI. The companies pulling ahead are those that align pricing with product innovation, move decisively on strategic choices, and build infrastructure that scales with customer needs.
Financial services firms must treat AI monetisation as an ongoing priority. The most successful embed it as a core growth lever in how they build, sell, and serve.
