In this episode of Unpack Pricing, James Brown, Chief Product Officer at Metronome, hosts a product leader-to-product leader conversation with Brandon Walsh, Director of PM, FinTech & Billing at HubSpot. Drawing on his experience at Intercom leading monetization, Brandon explains why usage-based billing fundamentally transforms product management, requiring deeper customer focus and making every team a "customer success team." He shares tactical frameworks for creating transparent and fair billing experiences, insights from implementing outcome-based pricing at Intercom, and how AI will shape how companies monetize. They explore how product careers are evolving to require cross-functional expertise, the build-vs-buy decision for billing infrastructure, and why product leaders should view billing as core to customer experience rather than back-office infrastructure. Brandon concludes with his "hot take" on why now is the time to be bold with pricing innovation while maintaining flexibility to iterate quickly.
FULL TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE HERE:
http://metronome.com/unpack-pricing/beyond-the-seat-model-how-usage-based-pricing-is-transforming-product-teams
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Follow:
James
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-brown-0238ba23/
Brandon
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonwalsh/
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Check out:
Hubspot: https://www.hubspot.com/
Metronome: https://metronome.com/
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(03:34) The rise of usage-based billing
(04:03) Customer experience in usage-based models
(06:00) How product teams must change
(08:00) Every team becomes customer success
(09:09) Organizational impact and team structure
(10:41) Inbound vs. outbound product management
(12:00) Product leadership and monetization
(17:32) End-to-end customer experience
(18:16) The revenue anatomy framework
(21:53) Building billing experiences in product
(27:46) Billing as product experience
(31:02) Build vs. buy decision framework
(37:00) Managing billing complexity
(40:58) AI's impact on pricing and billing
(47:34) Agent pricing and outcome-based models
(54:26) Hot takes: The future of pricing
(59:14) Wrap
