# AI Pods Pricing

> How AI Pods are priced: story points, monthly capacity tiers, banked points, and the 90-day expiry. Published rather than buried.

Source: https://www.koombea.com/ai-pods/pricing/

---

You buy story points, either as a fixed-bid scope or as a monthly capacity commitment. Here is the whole structure, including the parts most vendors leave in the contract.


## One honest unit of work

We estimate every item of work in story points, on a simple 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 scale. Points track functional scope, integration complexity, and test coverage, which are the real drivers of effort. A point means the same thing in month one and month twelve.

Nothing larger than an 8 enters the backlog. If an item estimates higher, we break it down until each piece is something we can commit to with confidence. That decomposition happens before you approve anything.


## Pick your capacity. Change it as you grow.

### Starter

- Delivery lanes: 1 lane
- Monthly capacity: 80 to 100 points
- Best for: A focused product stream
- Kickoff: Initial planning session
- Priority Sync: Every 1 to 2 weeks, 20 minutes
- Delivery review: Not included

### Growth

- Delivery lanes: 3 lanes
- Monthly capacity: 240 to 300 points
- Best for: A product team's full roadmap
- Kickoff: Deep planning: architecture and roadmap
- Priority Sync: Weekly, 30 minutes
- Delivery review: Monthly, 30 minutes

### Scale

- Delivery lanes: 5 to 7 lanes
- Monthly capacity: 400 to 700 points
- Best for: Multi-product portfolios
- Kickoff: Multi-day onboarding
- Priority Sync: Weekly plus async report
- Delivery review: Monthly, 45 minutes

### Enterprise

- Delivery lanes: 10 or more lanes
- Monthly capacity: From 800 points
- Best for: Org-wide delivery programs
- Kickoff: Full onboarding program
- Priority Sync: Weekly plus async report
- Delivery review: Bi-weekly


Monthly capacity is quoted as a range because a lane commits at the lower bound and typically delivers above it. The commitment is the floor you are invoiced against, not a forecast we are asking you to trust.


## The terms most vendors leave in the contract

A capacity commitment only works if you know what happens to capacity you do not use. Here is our answer.

- Banked points: on a capacity commitment, a month that lands under the commitment banks the difference. A heavier month draws it back down before anything extra is invoiced.
- 90-day expiry: banked points carry forward on a rolling 90 days, are not redeemable for cash, and are forfeited if the engagement ends.
- Retainer balance: on a fixed-bid engagement your deposit is held as a retainer and drawn down against delivered points. Every invoice states the points delivered and the balance remaining.
- Warranty: 30 calendar days on delivered software, running from your written acceptance of the production launch.
- Change orders: any work not in the scope is estimated in points and priced before it starts. There is no penalty for a change order, because changing your mind is product learning, not a breach.
- No metered surprises: you are never billed per AI call, per token, or per seat.

## What is not priced in points

Governance, risk and compliance work is never story-point priced. Audit and attestation work is scoped as a retainer or a fixed fee, because the deliverable is an opinion rather than a feature.

Fixed-scope specialist deliverables, such as a penetration test or a load-testing engagement, are priced upfront and drawn from your existing lane rather than opening a second billing track.