这是一个三年前软件行业还从未遇到过的问题：一位客户与一家软件公司签订了购买人工智能（AI）产品的合同，并开始大量使用该产品——这正是所有软件供应商都希望看到的情况。然而，客户的每一次使用都会给供应商带来成本：包括支付给第三方模型的费用、计算资源的使用费用，以及相关的其他费用。发票按照约定的价格开具给客户，但这些实际产生的成本却被记录在云服务账单中，且并未与客户的实际使用情况相对应。
Here is a problem the software industry did not have three years ago. A customer signs a contract for an AI product. They use it heavily, which is what every vendor wants. Every one of those uses costs the vendor money: tokens, compute, third-party model calls. The invoice goes out at the agreed price. The cost of delivering what was invoiced is somewhere in a cloud bill nobody has matched to that customer.
到了季度末，财务部门才发现：原本被视为公司收入来源的主要客户实际上却导致了利润亏损。
And at quarter-end, finance discovers that the best customer on the revenue chart was a loss on the margin one.
“人工智能彻底打破了传统的软件定价模式，”Vayu公司的首席执行官兼联合创始人Erez Agmon说道。“过去，提供SaaS服务几乎不需要任何成本；但现在，一个单一的高消费客户就足以让整个合同的利润化为乌有，而大多数财务团队往往要等到一个季度后才能发现这一问题。”Vayu是一家专注于AI收入管理的平台，目前被Vi、Groundcover、Narmi、Simetrik、Dataplor和Aquant等公司采用。
“AI broke the old math of software,” says Erez Agmon, CEO and co-founder of Vayu. “A SaaS seat used to cost almost nothing to serve. Today a single heavy customer can wipe out the margin on an entire contract, and most finance teams find out a quarter later.”Vayu, an AI revenue management platform used by finance teams at Vi, Groundcover, Narmi, Simetrik, Dataplor and Aquant, launched its Revenue Intelligence Hub, an insights and margin layer that sits on top of the company’s metering infrastructure and revenue agents and shows a CFO, customer by customer, whether pricing is keeping up with the cost of delivering AI.
该公司刚刚推出了“收入智能中心”（Revenue Intelligence Hub）这一工具，该工具基于公司的计费系统及收入管理数据，能够为首席财务官（CFO）提供详细信息，显示每个客户的实际使用情况以及定价是否能够覆盖提供AI服务所产生的成本。同时，Vayu还与PwC及《The SaaS CFO》杂志合作发布了《2026年CFO信号报告》（CFO Signal Report 2026），探讨了基于使用量、混合定价模式以及AI技术如何正在重塑企业的收入管理流程。
Alongside it, the company published the CFO Signal Report 2026 with PwC and The SaaS CFO on how usage-based, hybrid and AI pricing are reshaping revenue operations. Pricing moved.
虽然产品的定价方式已经发生了变化，但 billing（计费方式）却依然沿用旧有的模式。Vayu正在推动的这一变革主要分为两个方面：
Billing didn’t. The shift Vayu is building for has two halves. The first is that AI products carry variable cost.
- AI产品的成本具有高度的不确定性：客户使用的每一项功能或服务都会产生相应的成本（如模型调用、GPU计算资源的使用、第三方API的调用等）。为此，供应商已将定价方式调整为与客户的使用量挂钩，通过提供相应的折扣或奖励来激励客户减少资源消耗。
Every action a customer takes consumes something: a model call, a GPU minute, an embedding, a third-party API. Vendors have responded by moving pricing to usage, credits and outcomes, so that revenue tracks consumption.
- 财务管理的透明化：通过“收入智能中心”，财务部门可以实时监控每个客户的实际使用情况，从而更准确地评估产品的盈利能力。
总之，人工智能技术正在彻底改变软件行业的定价与财务管理方式。
The second is newer. A wave of AI-powered services companies now sell outcomes instead of hours, with contracts built on milestones, step-up commitments, ramp schedules and success-based fees.
第二种模式更为新颖。如今，一波由人工智能驱动的服务公司不再按工时计费，而是按成果收费，其合同基于里程碑、阶梯式承诺、爬坡计划以及基于成功率的费用构建。承诺的内容、实际交付的成果、本月可开具的账单金额以及交付成本，如今变成了分布在四个不同系统中的四个不同数字。
What was promised, what was delivered, what can be billed this month and what it cost to deliver it are now four different numbers in four different places. Most revenue systems were built for flat subscriptions.
大多数收入系统是为固定订阅模式而设计的。它们可以按席位数量计费，但无法将里程碑合同与使用日志及云账单进行对账。《CFO信号报告》量化了这种不匹配现象的普遍程度：58%的财务负责人已经在三个或更多系统中运行混合定价模式，且没有任何工具将它们统一起来。正如阿格蒙（Agmon）所概括的那样，其结果是公司在收入增长的同时，利润率却在悄然流失，而财务团队则在关闭账目时，面对着一系列无法完全解释的数字。
They can bill a seat count. They cannot reconcile a milestone contract against usage logs against a cloud bill. The CFO Signal Report puts a number on how common that mismatch is: 58 percent of finance leaders are already running hybrid pricing across three or more systems with nothing unifying them. The result, in Agmon’s framing, is companies that grow revenue while quietly losing margin, and finance teams closing the books on numbers they cannot fully explain.
他说：“定价和成本如今每天都在同步变动，收入引擎必须同时看到这两者。”
“Pricing and cost now move together, every day, and the revenue engine has to see both,” he says.
三层架构，一个平台。Vayu的解决方案分为三层，新的Hub（中枢）位于最顶层。
Three layers, one platform Vayu’s answer is organised in three layers, and the new Hub is the top one.
基础设施层。这是一个计量与收入数据层，为工程团队提供使用数据的单一集成点。它每天可摄取并验证多达一百万条计费事件，并将其与来自Snowflake、AWS、Azure、Salesforce、Stripe和NetSuite等系统的合同、CRM及计费数据进行统一。开发者只需连接一次；此后，定价变更无需再提交工程工单。
Infrastructure. A metering and revenue data layer that gives engineering a single integration point for usage data. It ingests and validates up to one million billing events a day and unifies them with contracts, CRM and billing data from systems including Snowflake, AWS, Azure, Salesforce, Stripe and NetSuite. Developers connect once; after that, a pricing change does not need an engineering ticket.
智能体层。在数据层之上，人工智能智能体端到端地运行收入生命周期。合同提取功能可将协议（包括里程碑、阶梯式条款、爬坡计划及基于成果的条款）转化为计费和定价逻辑。随后是账单执行、符合ASC 606标准的收入确认、报告，以及由智能体主导的催收和对账。常规工作自动运行，财务团队只需处理例外情况。
Agents. On top of the data, AI agents run the revenue lifecycle end to end. Contract extraction turns agreements, including milestones, step-ups, ramps and outcome-based terms, into billing and pricing logic. Billing execution, ASC 606-ready revenue recognition, reporting, and agent-led collections and reconciliation follow. Routine work runs automatically; finance handles exceptions.
智能。收入智能中心（Revenue Intelligence Hub）的洞察代理（Insights Agent）能够基于实时数据，回答有关使用情况、合同、定价、计费、收入和利润率的通俗语言问题，并能呈现财务部门通常要在月末才能获悉的信息：例如消费超出计划的客户、服务成本正在侵蚀利润率的定价层级、合同中约定条款与开票金额不符导致的收入流失，以及面临风险的续约项目。
Intelligence. The Revenue Intelligence Hub’s Insights Agent answers plain-language questions about usage, contracts, pricing, billing, revenue and margins, grounded in live data, and surfaces what finance would otherwise learn at month-end: customers whose consumption is outpacing their plan, pricing tiers where cost-to-serve is eroding margin, contracts leaking revenue between agreed and invoiced terms, renewals at risk.
其带来的实际价值在于，首席财务官（CFO）可以询问“本月哪些客户的利润率低于预期”，并能在当天获得答案，而无需等待六周后的复盘分析。
The practical promise is that a CFO can ask “which customers are below margin this month” and get an answer today rather than a reconstruction in six weeks.
CFO信号报告（CFO Signal Report）的发现：该报告由普华永道（PwC）和The SaaS CFO联合制作，基于约100位处于扩张期的B2B公司CFO及财务负责人的见解。报告标题直言不讳：收入引擎正处于崩溃的临界点。
What the CFO Signal Report found The report, produced with PwC and The SaaS CFO, is based on insights from roughly 100 CFOs and finance leaders at scaling B2B companies, and its title does not hedge: the revenue engine is hitting its breaking point.
核心数据揭示了财务部门正在手动应对定价模式的转变。72%的CFO表示，计费复杂性是他们面临的首要运营痛点，其优先级高于人员编制、合规性和结账流程。58%的受访者采用混合定价模式（席位费+使用费+一次性费用），且缺乏统一的计费层，需要跨三个或更多系统进行管理。41%的受访者表示，即使部署了ERP系统，收入确认工作仍部分依赖人工。而那些实现了计费基础设施自动化的团队，其结账速度是采用传统或手动工作流程团队的两倍。
The headline numbers describe a finance function absorbing a pricing shift by hand. Seventy-two percent of CFOs say billing complexity is their number one operational friction point, ahead of headcount, compliance and the close process. Fifty-eight percent are running hybrid pricing models, seat plus usage plus one-time fees, with no unified billing layer, managed across three or more systems. Forty-one percent say revenue recognition is still partially manual, even with an ERP in place. And the teams that have automated their billing infrastructure close the books twice as fast as those on legacy or manual workflows.
该报告的核心观点是，大多数SaaS计费基础设施是为一种已不复存在的商业模式而构建的。随着定价模式向基于用量、混合模式以及“席位+消耗”模式转变，首席财务官（CFO）期望达到的状态与其工具实际支持能力之间的差距正在不断扩大。报告内容包括：计费技术栈的基准测试及前四分位表现、ASC 606合规性失效的环节、CFO如何针对可变合同进行收入预测、现代化团队升级的优先顺序，以及一项衡量董事会层面收入审查准备度的“CFO信心指数”。该报告可在signal-report免费获取。
The report’s framing is that most SaaS billing infrastructure was built for a business that no longer exists, and that as pricing moves to usage-based, hybrid and seat-plus-consumption models, the gap between where CFOs want to be and what their tools allow is widening. Inside it: billing-stack benchmarks and what the top quartile looks like, where ASC 606 compliance is breaking down, how CFOs are trying to forecast revenue on variable contracts, the order in which modernised teams upgraded, and a CFO Confidence Index on readiness for board-level revenue scrutiny. It is available free at signal-report.
“定价已成为增长杠杆，而财务部门却被迫在没有相应工具的情况下应对这种复杂性，”阿格蒙（Agmon）表示。“在人工智能领域胜出的企业，将是那些能够实时掌握单位经济模型，而非仅在季度末才了解情况的企业。”
“Pricing has become a growth lever, and finance has been handed the complexity without the tools to manage it,” Agmon says. “The companies that win in AI will be the ones that know their unit economics in real time, not at quarter-end.”
这位创始人最初专注于应付账款领域，其背景解释了这一战略押注。他在金融科技运营和早期投资领域深耕十年，曾作为PayEm的创始团队成员，参与了推动应付账款自动化的浪潮。然而，应收账款（即流入的资金）仍停留在电子表格中，因为每位客户的定价各不相同，且每次定价变更都需要提交工程工单。成立于2024年的Vayu旨在成为第二波浪潮：由财务主导的收入管理，实现从合同到现金的全流程闭环。
The founder who did payables first Agmon’s background explains the bet. He spent a decade across fintech operations and early-stage investing, including as a founding team member at PayEm, part of the wave that automated accounts payable. Receivables, the money coming in, stayed in spreadsheets, because every customer’s pricing was different and every pricing change meant an engineering ticket. Vayu, founded in 2024, was built to be the second wave: finance-owned revenue, from contract to cash.
目前客户反馈主要集中在系统的运行速度和错误率方面。Vayu系统使得账单处理速度提高了75%，对账速度提高了90%，并且整个系统中完全没有出现任何电子表格错误；客户的付款周期通常在14天或更短时间内完成。Narmi公司的财务与会计副总裁Brian Aber将该公司原有的处理流程形容为“世界上最繁琐、最复杂的电子表格处理系统”，而现在的账单处理流程则被描述为“一个值得信赖的自动化系统”。
The customer evidence so far is about speed and error rates. Vayu reports 75 percent faster billing, 90 percent faster reconciliation and zero spreadsheet errors across its base, with customers typically live in 14 days or less. Narmi’s VP of finance and accounting, Brian Aber, described the company’s old process as “the world’s busiest spreadsheet” and its billing today as “an automated process we can trust.”
Simetrik公司的首席财务官Felipe Pardo表示，Vayu系统能够让公司实时掌握客户的消费情况，并在问题出现之前就完成续费和账单处理工作。Vayu系统已获得SOC 2认证，并专为NetSuite平台量身定制。该公司已从Flint Capital和The Garage等投资机构筹集了数百万美元的资金；其创始人以及SoftBank早期投资基金的管理合伙人也参与了投资。Vayu公司的总部位于纽约，研发团队则设在特拉维夫。
Simetrik’s CFO, Felipe Pardo, said Vayu lets the company “see customer consumption as it happens” and handle renewals and billing “before they become month-end issues.”Vayu is SOC 2 certified and Built for NetSuite. It has raised millions of dollars from Flint Capital and The Garage, with participation from the founders of Melio and managing partners of SoftBank’s previous funds, and is headquartered in New York with R&D in Tel Aviv.
未来的关键在于如何提升公司的利润率——而这正是最难实现的目标。要准确计算每位客户的成本，就需要将云服务费用和模型相关支出与具体客户账户进行匹配；这意味着Vayu系统的基础设施必须能够像清晰地记录用户使用情况一样，同样清晰地记录各项成本支出。该公司声称自己已经做到了这一点，而实际采用该系统的财务主管们将最终验证这一说法的准确性。
The future The claim that matters is the margin, and it is the hardest to deliver. Showing cost-to-serve per customer requires matching cloud and model spend to individual accounts, which means Vayu’s infrastructure layer has to see the cost side as cleanly as it sees the usage side. The company says it does; the CFOs who adopt the Hub will be the ones to confirm it.
另一个值得关注的问题是：那些多年来一直对财务自动化流程持怀疑态度的财务团队，是否会允许销售人员直接负责账单处理、费用确认和收款工作？Vayu系统的设计使得工作人员只需处理那些属于例外情况的复杂问题，这种做法是正确的；从客户反馈来看，该系统的日常运作表现确实令人满意。
The second question is whether finance teams, who have spent a decade learning to distrust automation around money, will let agents run billing, recognition and collections. Vayu’s design keeps people on the exceptions, which is the right posture, and its customer results suggest the routine side holds up.
然而，根本问题并未消失：人工智能使得每位客户的成本都变得具有不确定性，而基于结果的合同模式使得每一张发票都成为需要核对的对象。任何能够在同一天、同一位置向财务部门展示这两组数据的公司，都必将吸引众多首席财务官的关注。
But the underlying problem is not going away. AI made every customer a variable cost, and outcome-based contracts made every invoice a reconciliation. Whoever shows finance both numbers, in the same place, on the same day, is going to have a lot of CFOs’ attention.
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