The Line Item Nobody Forecasts

AI is not a seat. It is a meter. SaaS trained finance to forecast a flat number per head per month. AI does not work that way, and treating it like it does is how budgets blow up.

Forecast the drivers

Usage-based pricing means cost scales with behavior, and agentic behavior scales fast and nonlinearly. Forecast AI as a variable cost tied to real drivers. Active users. Tasks automated. Agent runs per day.

Build a range, not a single point estimate, because the variance is the whole story. Then bound the downside. Put hard caps in place so that even the worst-case month is a number you can survive and explain. A forecast without a ceiling is a hope, not a plan.