A pricing model that charges based on the number of individual users (seats) with access to a product, as opposed to pricing based on usage volume, feature tier alone, or a flat organizational fee.
Why it matters
Per-seat pricing scales revenue naturally as a customer's team grows, and is straightforward for both buyer and seller to understand — but it can also create friction, as customers sometimes limit how many people get access specifically to control cost, potentially reducing overall product adoption within an account.
In a sentence
"We're per-seat priced with unlimited launches, rather than usage-based, so a growing team doesn't get penalized for shipping more campaigns."
Related terms
- Antonyms: Usage-based pricing (charging based on actual consumption or activity, rather than number of users).
- Often confused with: Usage-based pricing (see below — the two are frequently combined, e.g., a base per-seat fee plus usage-based overages, so it's worth being specific about which model, or combination, a given product actually uses).
- Synonyms: Seat-based pricing.