From The Sourcing Paradox series · Week 4: The way forward · First shared on LinkedIn, October 28, 2026
In my view, AI pricing is moving from a fixed price per user towards pricing based on usage: tokens, queries, compute hours. On paper, you pay for what you use. In practice, the bill can move faster than your budget.
Procurement should treat consumption pricing like any other variable-cost category and build the controls into the contract before signing.
Three clauses I'd check:
Usage caps. A ceiling on consumption before costs run away.
Price-change notice. Time to react before rates move.
Spend alerts. Circuit breakers that warn you before the invoice does.
None of these are exotic. They're the same disciplines procurement already applies to utilities, freight and cloud. The difference is that AI usage can grow quietly as more people adopt a tool, and nobody notices until finance does.
Additionally, consumption planning and forecasts are not helpful, as no historical data is available. Our past does not help predict the future. Does your AI contract cap what you can be billed for? Yes, no, or you're not sure?
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