The most quoted number in software pricing was a forecast. The survey that followed measured 41%.

The most quoted statistic in software pricing says 61% of SaaS companies use usage-based pricing. That number was a forecast. OpenView published it in February 2023, and the firm's own survey that fall measured 41%.

The forecast has outlived the firm. OpenView stopped investing in December 2023, and its blog stayed online for years afterward. Its report pages have since stopped loading: the report post redirects to OpenView's homepage, and its usage-based pricing hub returns a 404. Ahrefs still lists 148 sites linking to that one post, and 676 sites linking to the 12 OpenView report pages we checked.

So we read the archived originals to see what they said.

What the 61% usage-based pricing figure said

The 61% usage-based pricing figure comes from one sentence in The State of Usage-Based Pricing: 2nd Edition, written by Kyle Poyar, then an OpenView partner, and published February 2, 2023: "we predict that by the end of this year, 61% of the general SaaS index will have adopted some form of usage-based pricing, with another 21% planning on testing UBP in the future."

The confusion starts one line higher. The subhead above that sentence reads "Three out of five SaaS companies now use some form of usage-based pricing." So the post gave the same figure a present-tense headline and a future-tense prediction, and most later citations kept the headline.

The next paragraph adds a second wrinkle. It says 15% of SaaS companies "have rolled out a largely usage-based or pay-as-you-go model," and that 46% "take a hybrid approach, either by testing UBP alongside traditional subscriptions or offering a usage-based subscription plan." Those two figures add up to 61, which suggests the forecast counted companies that were only testing.

What the usage-based pricing survey measured in 2023

The usage-based pricing survey OpenView ran that fall came in well under the forecast. Poyar's November 30, 2023 post on the firm's seventh annual SaaS Benchmarks report, based on more than 700 companies, gave this split:

Usage-based pricing in OpenView's 2023 survey	Share of companies
Usage-based subscription tiers	23%
Largely usage-based model	18%
Have tested usage-based pricing	17%
No usage-based pricing	42%

Add the first two rows and 41% of companies charged on usage in some form. Add the testers and it is 58%. Poyar said as much in Growth Unhinged in February 2024: "UBP adoption is down slightly year-on-year from 46% to 41%," adding that "Enthusiasm has now cooled."

The forecast therefore missed by 20 points on adoption, and came within three only if testing counts as using.

Other OpenView pricing numbers worth rechecking

Other OpenView pricing numbers have drifted too, and the dead links make them harder to check.

Number	How it often gets used	What the source said
46%	Share of SaaS companies on hybrid pricing	In February 2023, hybrid pricing including companies testing it. In February 2024, Poyar used 46% for total adoption in 2022. Check which one you mean.
45%	Current usage-based adoption	A 2021 figure, up from 34% the year before, per CFO Dive's report on the OpenView survey.
94%	OpenView's finding on how often companies change pricing	Paddle's survey, in a post on OpenView's blog: "over 94% of B2B SaaS pricing leaders update pricing and packaging at least once per year."
54%	Usage-based companies earn more	OpenView's hub compared public usage-based companies with a broader SaaS index on "revenue scale." It covers public companies only.

Why the 61% stat matters for AI agent pricing

The 61% stat matters for AI agent pricing because it props up a tidy story: seats give way to usage, and usage gives way to outcomes. The data since then is messier. In his May 2026 poll of 230 software and AI companies, Poyar found 37% on hybrid pricing, the most common model, which he describes as combining two or more models, such as a per-seat subscription with AI consumption.

That matters to anyone pricing or buying an agent. A vendor citing 61% is claiming a shift that a 2023 survey did not find, and a buyer hearing it may assume the market has settled when it has not. Our guide to outcome-based pricing lists what vendors charge today.

What is not established

What is not established is exactly how OpenView built the 61%. We read the public posts rather than the gated report, so the 15 plus 46 reading above is our inference. The two 46% figures may also rest on different definitions.

We also cannot say why the pages stopped loading, or when in the past four months that happened, beyond the last working capture on June 24. These surveys covered private SaaS companies that chose to answer, so none of these numbers is a census of the market.

How to cite usage-based pricing numbers now

To cite usage-based pricing numbers accurately, use the measured figure and put a year on it.

• Use 41% for companies with usage-based pricing in OpenView's 2023 survey, plus 17% that had tested it.
• Call 61% what it was: a forecast for the end of 2023.
• Credit the 94% to Paddle, not OpenView.
• For a current read, use Poyar's 2026 hybrid figure of 37%, and note that it comes from a different and smaller sample.
• Point to an archived copy, since the originals no longer load.