HubSpot Shares Fall 26 Percent After AI Pricing Changes

Cambridge software company HubSpot lost more than one-quarter of its market value on Friday after it announced price reductions for its AI features and reported a slow start to second-quarter sales. Shares traded as low as $180.50, a 26 percent drop from Thursday’s close.

The stock is down 55 percent so far this year. Investors had already expressed concern that customers might develop their own AI tools instead of paying for the company’s offerings. On Thursday evening the company said it would change how it charges for AI agent features that respond to customer service inquiries or generate sales leads.

Previously customers paid for computing usage regardless of whether the agents succeeded. The new model charges only for successful outcomes such as resolving a question or finding a useful sales lead. “This is outcome-based pricing in its simplest form.

Customers pay when the agent works,” the chief executive said on a call with analysts. The customer service agent succeeds about 70 percent of the time. Only about 9,000 of the company’s nearly 300,000 customers currently use the AI customer agent, while 14,000 use the sales prospecting agent.

The chief financial officer said the company lowered the price of AI customer service agents, moved to outcome-based pricing for both customer service and sales agents, and began offering a 28-day free trial.

The chief financial officer added that pulling salespeople into training sessions on the AI features in April contributed to second-quarter sales getting off to a slow start. She said the pricing and packaging changes may extend sales cycles in the near term.

Analysts expressed concern that the adjustments could lead customers to delay or reduce AI usage. One report noted that the changes have caused a sales slowdown as customers take longer to evaluate new AI products. Another report said emphasizing AI features may affect the momentum of the company’s core business, while noting that broad adoption of agents remains unproven.

Apart from the AI-related announcements, the company reported first-quarter results that exceeded analyst expectations. Revenue rose 23 percent to $881 million. Adjusted net income per share increased 53 percent to $2.72.