Pricing AI Features in 2026: How To Charge For LLM-Backed Products Without Bleeding Margins

The first AI feature I shipped on a flat plan lost money on the third user who discovered it. Not slowly. Immediately. He was running a script through it on a loop because the UI did not stop him from doing that, and his single account burned through more in API costs that week than the feature was supposed to make in a month. I shipped the fix on a Sunday and rewrote the pricing on a Tuesday, and I have not priced an AI feature on a flat plan since. That is the lesson the SaaS playbook had not