Ask HN: How should I price an AI infrastructure platform?

2 pointsposted 7 hours ago
by aqibkhan026

Item id: 49354254

2 Comments

deadcatfound

6 hours ago

For the first deal, I’d use a flat platform fee with a clear usage allowance. Revenue share gets messy before you know support and compute costs.

aqibkhan026

5 hours ago

That's helpful. One wrinkle I'm running into: most of the underlying code is open source, and I've built a minimal platform/MVP on top of it that ships with the open-source library.

So I'm debating between:

1. A self-hosted version where the customer uses their own compute, and we license the platform layer. 2. Hosting it myself and charging for the managed service.

For a first enterprise/consulting customer, would you lean toward self-hosted or hosted?

Also, on the support side, what terms would you look out for? I'm especially concerned about accidentally committing to unlimited support/custom development or infrastructure costs before I know the economics.