Digits announces outcome-based pricing

AI-focused accounting and bookkeeping automation platform Digits introduced outcome-based pricing just for accounting firms, charging based on its ability to automate their work. 

CEO and founder Jeff Seibert said it bluntly in a statement: 

"As an engineer, I've never been interested in selling promises," said Seibert. "If Digits does the work, we should get paid. If it doesn't, we shouldn't."

Under this plan, accounting firms will only pay for clients where the Digits platform has successfully automated 95% or more of transactions with zero human touch: transactions that are neither created nor edited by a human accountant before the books are closed. If the team has to do more than 5% of the work for a given client in this manner, according to Seibert, they still need to deal with tedium and so Digits, therefore, will be free for that client. 

Seibert, in a later email, said the specific pricing varies based on the size of the firm and the types of clients it serves (e.g. simple vs complex, CAS vs tax-only). There is no graduated pricing - it is binary on whether the threshold is reached or not. Asked whether this represents a price increase or decrease, he said the model directly aligns Digits' incentives with the accounting firms we work with, "so no firm is either overpaying or underpaying for Digits. It's calibrated precisely to how much capacity we're able to free up by automating the tedium."

He said the announcement became possible as Digits improved, eventually reaching 95% accuracy across a range of businesses; he couched it not as the culmination of any one single change but the final realization of a long term vision. He added that they believe this change will help them "welcome more firms to Digits even faster" as they are currently working to scale up. 

To help make the transition, Digits also brought on Reggie Marable, head of sales at AI platform for managing agents that also uses outcome-based pricing, as a strategic advisor. 

"When AI can do the actual work, you shouldn't pay for potential—you should pay for results. Digits has built the only accounting platform that can deliver end-to-end outcomes, creating a new business model that redefines how accounting firms and tech companies partner together to deliver real value to clients," he said in a statement. 

The outcome-based pricing model is currently for accounting firms only. Subscription-based pricing remains available for business owners.