Paying after use: a fairer deal for small firms

Most software is sold the way gym memberships are sold. You pay up front, often for a year, on the promise that you will use it. If your plans change, the money has already gone. For a large company with a procurement team and a budget line, this is an annoyance. For a small firm it can be the difference between paying staff on time and not.

Paying after use turns the arrangement round. You use the software during the month, and you are billed for what you used once the month is over. The idea is hardly new. Electricity, water and telephone calls have worked this way for generations. What is odd is how rarely business software does.

Who carries the risk

Every pricing model is a decision about who carries the risk. An annual prepayment puts nearly all of it on the buyer. The seller knows its revenue for the year; the buyer finds out in month three whether the tool actually fits the way they work. If it does not, the choice is to keep paying for something unused or to write the money off.

Small businesses are poorly placed to absorb that risk. They are the great majority of firms, 90%¹ of businesses worldwide according to the World Bank, and many run on thin margins with cash that arrives unevenly. A shop’s takings in a festival month can look nothing like its takings in a quiet one. A tutor’s income follows the school year. A caterer’s follows the wedding season. A large upfront fee lands on whichever month it lands on, regardless.

A price you pay after using something is a price you can check.

Billing after use shifts some of that risk back to the seller, where it arguably belongs. If the software is not useful, the customer stops using it and stops paying. The seller has to keep earning its place every month. That is uncomfortable for the seller, and it is meant to be.

No trials, and why

It might seem that free trials solve the same problem. They do not, quite. A trial usually asks for a card at the start and begins charging automatically at the end, which means part of its business model depends on people forgetting. It also squeezes the decision into a couple of weeks, when the real test of business software is whether it survives a busy month.

When you pay after use, there is nothing to trial. The first month is simply the first month. You install an app, use it, and the bill at the end reflects that. If it turns out not to suit you, you remove it, and you have not committed to a year’s fee on the strength of a sales demo.

Fair for large firms too

The argument is not only about small businesses. Large organisations also buy software they do not use: licences for staff who left last year, modules bought as part of a bundle, tools adopted by one department and forgotten by the next. Paying per channel, per app, per month makes that waste visible. Each line on the bill is something someone chose to install, and someone can choose to remove.

It also makes budgeting more honest. Instead of negotiating one large annual figure, a finance team can see what each brand or site actually costs to run, and set that against what it earns. That is a more useful conversation than arguing about a renewal quote once a year.

What it asks of us

At Svayam Incarnation Limited we chose this model for Intersink deliberately, and it shapes how we build. Every app in the catalogue has its own monthly price per channel, shown before you install it, and every app is free to install today. Each business receives one bill after the month, listing every channel and every app on it. There are no free trials. Instead, startups, small businesses, nonprofits and students can apply for free credits, from £800 for students to £16,000 for nonprofits, which are spent before any card is charged.

Billing after use means we earn only when an app is doing a job for someone. That keeps our attention on the unglamorous things: apps that load quickly on an old phone, bills whose wording makes sense to a busy owner, and taking out features nobody opens.

If an app is not earning its place on the bill, it should be easy to take it off.

There are trade-offs, and we would rather name them. Monthly billing gives us less certainty than annual contracts, and it gives customers fewer discounts for committing early. We think that is the right trade for most businesses, and especially for the small ones who make up the bulk of the economy. In emerging economies such firms can produce up to 40%² of GDP. Their cash flow is not a niche concern.

Nor is paying after use a licence to be vague. A customer who is billed at the end of the month needs to know, at the start of it, what each thing will cost. That is why every price sits on the pricing page and on each app’s own page, and why the bill lists channels and apps rather than a single mysterious total. You can read more about the thinking on our pay as you go page.

The broader point is about trust. A company that bills you after use is saying something simple: we would rather be paid for what we delivered than for what we promised. It is a small sentence to write and a harder one to live by. We intend to live by it.