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Treasure AI is betting its growth on a pricing structure that charges for email based on clicks rather than sends, a direct challenge to the volume-based models that Braze and Klaviyo built their businesses on. Scott Brinker, the analyst behind the Martech Supergraphic, argues that private vendors can absorb the revenue disruption this kind of overhaul creates more easily than public competitors can. The engagement-based pricing move shifts performance risk from marketer to vendor, but Gartner data shows half of companies already on consumption-based contracts are in constant renegotiation to keep costs from spiking.
What this means for your business
The CMOs most exposed here are the ones running high-volume email programs where the cost-per-send model functions as a predictable line item in a fixed martech budget. If click-based pricing spreads, that predictability disappears. Whether that’s a threat or an opportunity depends on one thing: how confident you are in your targeting. A well-segmented list where clicks correlate reliably to pipeline means you’d pay less and prove more value to the board. A bloated list inflated by legacy acquisition tactics means your costs become a referendum on your marketing quality.
Brinker’s AWS analogy is worth taking seriously, not because it’s flattering but because it’s accurate about the direction of travel. Engineering teams resisted consumption pricing for cloud infrastructure for years, then learned to model it well enough that variable costs became predictable within acceptable ranges. The discipline that enabled that shift was instrumentation, knowing in near-real time what was being consumed and why. Most marketing operations teams don’t have that instrumentation today for email engagement, which is why 41% of Gartner’s survey respondents are scrambling to build real-time usage controls after committing to consumption-based contracts, not before.
The click-as-proxy problem that agency CEO Lindsay Marty raises is real, but it’s a solvable measurement challenge rather than a structural flaw in the model. The genuinely hard question is what Treasure AI does when clicks rise and conversions don’t, since the contract presumably still bills on the click. If the model includes a guaranteed click rate with downside protection for the marketer, it’s a compelling offer. If it’s purely pay-per-click with no floor and no ceiling, it’s consumption pricing dressed in outcome language. Treasure AI hasn’t disclosed rates or tiers yet, which means the renewal conversation you should be preparing for is with your current ESP, not with Treasure AI.
Based on reporting from Analyzing Treasure AI’s Move to Engagement-Based Email Pricing, originally published 2026-10-08 19:11:00.
