In December 2025 WiseTech Global launched 'CargoWise Value Packs,' which remove seat or user fees and charge only on a transactional basis. By February 2026 about 95% of CargoWise customers were on the new model. WiseTech's reasoning: AI lets customers do more with fewer people, which shrinks per-seat revenue, while transaction pricing grows as customers become more productive.
Key takeaways
- WiseTech began planning a new commercial model in November 2024 because of AI, and launched CargoWise Value Packs in December 2025.
- Value Packs remove seat and user fees entirely and charge only per transaction. About 95% of CargoWise customers had moved by February 2026.
- WiseTech's view: 'For SaaS businesses that monetize based on seats or users, AI will disrupt them... our revenue is not diluted by customers becoming more productive.'
- The e2open acquisition lifted first-half FY26 revenue 76% to A$672 million; CargoWise grew 9% organically.
- If your customers' teams could halve because of AI, price on the work flowing through your system, not on the people using it.
Imagine you sell software for $100 per user per month.
Your best customer has 50 people using it. That's $5,000 a month, and they love you.
Then they roll out an AI agent that does half the routine work. Same volume of business. Happier customers. Twenty-five fewer people needed at the keyboards.
Your reward for making them more productive? A 50% pay cut.
That's the trap WiseTech saw coming. So it got out before it closed.
What did the book say about WiseTech in 2022?
In Chapter Five, WiseTech was my star example of a deep moat.
Its flagship product, CargoWise, is the operating system for global logistics firms, with clients including FedEx and DHL. I quoted a 92% profit margin and annual churn of about 1%, a rate it had held for nine years.
I explained what that means: if WiseTech had 100 clients at the start of the year, ignored sales completely and added no new clients, it would still have 99 at the end of the year.
CargoWise is mission-critical, costly to set up and extremely hard to dislodge. An incredible business.
What's happened since?
WiseTech made one of the boldest pricing moves of the period.
- November 2024: it started planning to rebuild its commercial model, specifically because of AI.
- December 2025: it launched CargoWise Value Packs, which remove seat or user fees entirely and charge only on a transactional basis.
- February 2026: about 95% of CargoWise customers were on the new model.
About 30% of CargoWise revenue sits with customers on long-term commitment contracts, who are expected to move across over time.
Here's WiseTech's own explanation, from its half-year briefing:
"For SaaS businesses that monetize based on seats or users, AI will disrupt them... our revenue is not diluted by customers becoming more productive."
That's about as clear a statement of the problem as I've read anywhere.
And the business kept growing
WiseTech also bought e2open, which drove first-half FY26 revenue up 76% to A$672 million. CargoWise itself grew 9% organically. WiseTech now serves 59 of the largest global freight forwarders, and its full-year FY26 results headline was "record revenue, up 79%... EBITDA, up 54%."
Why did WiseTech drop seat pricing?
Because the value metric was pointing the wrong way.
In the book I talk about choosing what you charge per. The best value metric grows as your customer gets more value. Seats used to do that: a growing freight forwarder hired more people and bought more seats.
AI breaks the link. More value can now mean fewer people.
Illustrative: seats vs transactions after AI
A customer has 50 users at $100 a month = $5,000 a month on seat pricing.
AI lets them handle the same work with 25 users. Seat revenue falls to $2,500.
Now price the same customer at $0.50 per shipment processed, with 10,000 shipments a month = $5,000 a month.
Because they're more efficient, they win more business and process 12,000 shipments. Transaction revenue rises to $6,000.
Same customer, same AI. One model halves your revenue; the other grows it. These numbers are illustrative, not WiseTech's prices.
I walk through the trade-offs in seat-based vs usage-based pricing, and why seats are under pressure in my guide to seat-based pricing.
What should you charge per?
Score your candidate value metrics, from seats to transactions to outcomes, with the free Value Metric Finder.
Why could WiseTech pull this off?
Most software companies would struggle to move 95% of customers to a new pricing model within about two months of launch. WiseTech could, for three reasons that go back to the MOATS framework.
1. Switching costs
CargoWise is embedded deep inside its customers' operations. Nobody rips it out over a pricing change. That's the S in MOATS.
2. Toughness
WiseTech says its moat includes customs solutions covering about 80% of manufactured trade flows, connections to more than 400 airlines and 150 ocean carriers, and embedded regulatory rules that "cannot be replicated by prompting an AI model." That's the T: hard-won, hard-to-copy depth. I explore how this kind of moat holds up against AI in moats in the AI era.
3. It sold the change as a better bundle
Value Packs include AI features. Customers weren't just handed a new price. They got more, and the new price lined up with how they get value.
Is transaction pricing right for everyone?
No.
Transaction pricing works when the work clearly flows through your system and the customer can see and predict it. Shipments, documents, bookings, payments, claims.
It's harder when usage is lumpy or invisible. And it makes revenue swing with your customers' volumes. In Chapter Four I describe ways to soften that: subscription tiers that step up with usage (as Leadfeeder did with leads), or usage with a minimum commitment that covers what you spent winning the customer. My usage-based pricing guide covers both.
What you can steal
- Ask the AI question. If you charge per user, what happens when your client's team halves? If the honest answer is "my revenue halves," start planning now, as WiseTech did a year before launch.
- Find the unit of work. What flows through your product or service? Jobs, files, transactions, returns lodged, appointments booked. That's your candidate value metric. Test it with the Value Metric Finder.
- Move people with a better bundle. Add something valuable (AI features, extra support) to the new plan, so the switch feels like an upgrade, not a price trick.
- Explain it as alignment. "You pay when you get value" is a message customers understand.
- Respect existing contracts. Migrate long-term customers as their terms allow, the way WiseTech is doing with its committed contracts.
This applies to service firms too. An accounting or IT firm that bills per staff member it supports faces the same squeeze. See the IT and managed services guide for per-device and per-outcome alternatives.
Pricing Model PickerFlat, tiered, seat, usage, credits, outcome or hybrid? Find out.Open the free tool →The lesson
When AI lets your customers do more with fewer people, per-seat pricing becomes a liability.
WiseTech had about the strongest moat I wrote about in the book, and it still decided not to wait. Price on the work flowing through your system, so that your customers getting more efficient grows your revenue instead of shrinking it.
So here's your question: when your customer gets better at their job, does your revenue go up or down?
For another Australian software company that compounded on switching costs, read how TechnologyOne passed A$500 million ARR early.
Frequently asked questions
What are CargoWise Value Packs?
They're WiseTech's new commercial model for CargoWise, launched in December 2025. Instead of paying per user or seat, customers pay on a transactional basis for the work processed through the system, with AI features included in the packs. WiseTech said about 95% of CargoWise customers were on the model by February 2026.
Why is AI a threat to per-seat pricing?
Per-seat pricing ties your revenue to the number of people using your software. If AI agents let a customer do the same work with half the staff, they need half the seats, and your revenue halves even though they're getting more value than ever. Pricing on transactions, documents or outcomes avoids that trap, because the work still flows through the system.
What happens to WiseTech customers on long-term contracts?
WiseTech said about 30% of CargoWise revenue sits with customers on long-term commitment contracts. Those customers are expected to move to the new model over time, as their contracts allow, rather than all at once. It's a reminder that a pricing change in enterprise software is usually a migration, not a switch.
Is WiseTech's moat still intact with AI?
WiseTech argues it is. It points to customs solutions covering about 80% of manufactured trade flows, connections to more than 400 airlines and 150 ocean carriers, and embedded regulatory rules it says 'cannot be replicated by prompting an AI model.' That's a switching-cost and toughness moat. Whether it holds is something the next few years will test.
Does transaction pricing make revenue less predictable?
It can, because revenue now rises and falls with customer volumes. Mission-critical systems like CargoWise soften that: freight still has to move, so volumes are fairly steady. Smaller businesses can add a minimum monthly commitment or a base fee to smooth things out, which is the hybrid approach I describe in the book's usage-based pricing chapter.
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Robert Coorey, MBA
Robert is the author of The Subscription Playbook and Feed a Starving Crowd and a Director at BPAG Accountants in Sydney. More about Robert.
Sources
- WiseTech Global, 1H26 results investor briefing scripts (Feb 2026)
- WiseTech Global, 1H26 ASX release (Feb 2026)
- WiseTech Global, Investor centre: FY26 results (Aug 2026)
Facts and prices checked 27 October 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.