A 2026 survey of 1,336 AI company executives across the U.S., Australia, Canada, the U.K., and Germany found that nearly 26% of AI firms set pricing by copying competitors, resulting in average gross margins of 37.7%. In contrast, companies that conducted structured pricing experiments achieved 45.3% margins, according to chargebee.com.
The survey revealed that 45.9% of AI leaders manage pricing and profitability separately, leading to disconnects between price setting and margin tracking. Firms that integrate pricing decisions with margin analysis—about 24% of respondents—run gross margins roughly 10 percentage points higher than others. Chargebee’s data shows experiment-driven pricing models yield margins above 61% nearly twice as often as competitor-based pricing.
The findings highlight the risks of adopting pricing strategies without rigorous testing. Copying competitors remains the most common pricing approach but ranks as the second-worst for profitability. The study underscores the importance of aligning pricing models with product-specific factors rather than defaulting to industry norms, a critical insight as AI companies scale and face margin pressures.
Chargebee’s survey offers a framework for AI firms to improve pricing outcomes by connecting pricing strategy directly to profitability metrics. The report emphasizes that structured pricing experiments are key to protecting margins as AI products grow in scale and complexity.