Price the Assistant Path in Disagree-Minutes, Not a Free Sticker
Picture a Thursday release desk that I am using as a composite, not as a customer story. Three engineers share one assistant path because the sticker says free. The suggestion looks tidy. Nobody pushes back. Twenty minutes later the same function is in review again. The assistant nodded at a null check the service has never had. Sound familiar? Here is the rude question I ask before anyone opens…
In a Thursday release desk scenario, three engineers share a single assistant path that is labeled as free. While the suggestion appears tidy, engineers are repeatedly sent back to review the same function. The assistant's nodding along to a null check, which the service has never encountered before, highlights a potential issue.
Before opening a pricing page, the author asks how much time was wasted on suggestions that were ultimately discarded. If the time spent is significant, a free sticker could be the more expensive option. Conversely, if the time spent is minimal, purchasing an additional path may be more of an aesthetic choice than a financial one.
The author emphasizes that their pricing model does not include tokens, rollback hours, or the perception of incident-related work. Instead, they focus on the number of "disagree-minutes," which represents the time engineers spend discarding, re-promoting, or rewriting suggestions before a merge. This metric is a conversation tool, not an objective truth or a benchmark for any vendor.
The author stresses that the bruise of retry decisions and assistants that agree too quickly is a buying question, not a reflection of any product's capabilities.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
