Monetizing Bad Models: Pay Per Correct Prediction

In many ML applications, especially ones where you need to train a model on customer data to get high levels of accuracy, the only models that ML SaaS companies can offer to a client out-of-the-box are bad. But many ML SaaS businesses hesitate to go to a client with a bad model. Part of the reason is that companies don’t understand that they can deliver value with a bad model. In many places, you can deliver value with a bad model by deploying a high-precision version, only offering predictions where you are highly confident. Another reason why ML SaaS companies likely hesitate is a lack of a reasonable pricing model. There, charging per correct response with some penalty for an incorrect answer may prove a good option. (If you are the sole bidder, setting the price just below the marginal cost of getting a human to label a response plus any additional business value from getting the job done more quickly may be one fine place to start.) Having such a pricing model is likely to reassure the client that they won’t be charged for the glamour of having an ML model and instead will only be charged for the results. (There is, of course, an upfront cost of switching to an ML model, which can be reasonably high and that cost needs to be assessed in terms of potential payoff over the long term.)