Why we price a developer tool per fix instead of per seat

When we priced Versyka, per seat was the obvious default. Almost every developer tool does it.

It didn't fit, for three reasons.

1. A bot doesn't have seats

Versyka opens pull requests. The people who review them might be one platform engineer or the whole team. Charging for each of them would mean charging more because more people can look at a PR, which is backwards.

2. The value is in the fix, not the access

What a team actually wants is a breaking upgrade done: the code rewritten, the tests passing, a PR to review. An afternoon of an engineer's time that didn't get spent. That's the unit worth paying for.

3. A failed attempt shouldn't cost you

If the change can't pass your tests, you didn't get anything. So it isn't counted.

What counts as a fix

A migration pull request: a breaking upgrade where Versyka changed your code and your tests passed.

What doesn't count:

• Version upgrades with no code changes. Unlimited on every plan (with a fair-use cap on daily test runs), because they're cheap to run: no AI, just your tests in a sandbox.
• Replacing a retiring AI model with its direct replacement.
• Attempts that never passed your tests.
• Seats, from the Team plan up: everyone with write access signs in, no seat fees. Free and Starter include you and two teammates.

The plans

The trade-off we accepted

Usage pricing is harder to predict than seats, for us and for you. Two things help: the monthly allowance is a ceiling (nothing surprise-bills), and the dashboard shows how many fixes are left this month before any work starts.

I'd like to hear from people who've bought or built usage-priced dev tools: what made the unit feel fair, and what made it feel like a meter running?