Value Metric

The unit of measurement that a price attaches to. The single most important decision in software pricing. When people say "outcome-based pricing," they're describing a metric family — the metric is any of a sea of possibilities that represent an outcome (tickets resolved, leads recommended, fraud avoided, claims processed). When people say "usage-based pricing," that's also a family — the metric is any number of possibilities that represent consumption (API calls, compute hours, conversations, transactions). These category labels are general nouns adopted by others. The decision is which specific metric to count, and where you land is unique to your IP, risk tolerance, customer ecosystem, product, and cost structure. In a license agreement, the value metric typically appears in the licensing and rights-to-use section — it defines the rights and access terms the customer is buying. Every other section of the agreement flows from this choice.