Earning models
How a Startup earns money, who pays whom under each of the five earning models, and which Product Template starts each one.
A business model is who pays whom, for what, and when. Every Product Template names one of five earning models, and the model decides which money records a Startup keeps.
Five ways money arrives
| Earning model | Who pays whom | Records it keeps | Product Templates | Typical price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
subscription | A Customer pays the Startup each period for access | Offer with an interval, Subscription, Invoice, Entitlement | SaaS, E2E managed service | $15 to $49 a month per seat |
usage | A Customer pays for what it used: calls a Meter counts, or outcomes it accepted | Meter, Entitlement with a Limit, Credit Grant, Invoice | Dataset API, Headless SaaS, Agent as a Service, Services-as-Software | $0.002 per lookup; $2 per accepted Task |
commerce | A Customer pays once per Order, and an upstream holds the stock and ships it | Order, with the upstream's tracking passed through | Dropship store | $20 to $80 per Order, at a 30 to 40 percent margin |
marketplace | A Customer pays a Supplier through the Startup, which keeps a take | Order, Supplier, and the take as a fee on each charge | Marketplace, Licensed-human marketplace | 10 to 20 percent of each settled Order |
directory | A listed business pays to be found, and readers search free | A Subscription per listing, with featured placement as a second Offer | Directory | $29 a month per listing |
The model also decides who sells. Under marketplace the Supplier is the seller of record and the Startup collects a fee; in every other model the Startup sells. Funds flow follows one dollar through each.
Who does the work
The earning model says how money arrives, and the template's worker says who earns it: Agents, Humans, or both. Agents serve the thousandth Customer the way they served the first, so an agent-run template needs only demand.
Humans in the loop change what a Startup runs. An E2E managed service pairs its Agents with Humans who answer for the work. A Licensed-human marketplace sells work only a licensed Human may sign, so each Reserved Act waits for that person's Attestation.
Who buys
A Motion is who buys and how they decide: a business, a consumer, a developer, or an agent buying for one of them. The same Offer sells through several. Motions compares the eight.
A Startup Template fixes all three choices at once: an operating model, one or more Product Templates, and its Motions. Solo SaaS is one founder, SaaS and Headless SaaS, sold to businesses and consumers.
One Startup, several models
A Startup sells as many Products as it likes, each from its own template and earning model. A tax-research Startup sells its rulings as a Dataset API, metered per lookup. Over the same records it sells a filing check as Services-as-Software, billed per accepted return.
Each Product keeps its own Offers, Metrics and books, so one model's numbers never hide another's. The Customer stays one record across both.
A vertical is not a model
Legal, dental and property management are verticals, not models. A vertical brings its own ICP, Nouns, Credentials and rules, and every model above serves any of them. A tax-research Startup and a dental-billing Startup can run the same template.