The 5% Revolution: Killing the SaaS Subscription Model for Merchants

January 22, 2026

Let me tell you about the most dishonest business model in e-commerce.

A merchant signs up for a "discovery platform." They pay $49/month. Then $99/month. Then $299/month as they scale. They list their products, optimize their listings, follow all the best practices.

And nothing happens.

The platform got paid. The merchant got... hope. Maybe some impressions. Maybe some clicks. Definitely no guarantee of anything resembling a return on investment.

This is the SaaS subscription model applied to commerce. And it's fundamentally broken.

The Misalignment Problem

Traditional commerce platforms make money when merchants sign up. Merchants make money when customers buy.

See the problem?

The platform's incentive is to get merchants to subscribe and keep subscribing. Whether those merchants actually sell anything is, economically speaking, irrelevant. The platform has your money either way.

This creates perverse dynamics:

• Platforms optimize for signups, not sales
• Merchants pay for potential, not results
• Success metrics focus on engagement, not revenue

The merchant bears all the risk. The platform bears none.

We think that's backwards.

The 5% Revolution

At Abba Baba, merchants pay nothing upfront. No setup fees. No monthly subscription. No charges of any kind—until an AI agent actually drives a sale to their store.

Then, and only then, they pay a 5% commission on that sale.

This is pay-per-performance. Pure alignment. We only make money when merchants make money.

Why This Changes Everything

For Merchants: Zero-Risk Distribution

Think about what this means for a merchant evaluating us.

There's no budget decision. No ROI calculation. No "let's try it for three months and see." You list your products, and if they sell through our agents, you pay a small commission. If they don't, you pay nothing.

The only question becomes: "Is there any reason not to list?"

For most merchants, the answer is no. Which means they list. Which means more products in our catalog. Which means better selection for AI agents. Which means more sales. Flywheel engaged.

For Agents: Better Inventory

Agents building on our platform get access to merchants who wouldn't be on subscription-based platforms.

Why? Because subscription models have a selection bias problem. Only merchants confident enough to pay upfront will list. That excludes:

• Small merchants testing new channels
• Niche sellers with limited marketing budgets
• New businesses that can't commit to monthly fees
• International sellers hesitant about unfamiliar platforms

Our model removes the barrier. Merchants list because there's no cost to trying. Agents get access to inventory that wouldn't exist otherwise.

For Us: Honest Incentives

We have exactly one way to make money: drive sales.

Not "drive traffic." Not "increase engagement." Not "improve visibility." Sales. Actual transactions where money changes hands and merchants receive revenue.

This means every engineering decision, every product feature, every algorithm tweak gets evaluated against one question: does this help merchants sell more?

If we build features that don't drive sales, we don't get paid. If we optimize for vanity metrics, we don't get paid. If we recommend products that don't convert, we don't get paid.

The feedback loop is immediate and unforgiving. We either deliver results or we starve.

The Tier System: Scaling With Success

The 5% rate is our free tier—designed for merchants getting started.

As merchants grow with us, they can opt into plans that reduce their commission rate in exchange for a monthly fee:

The math is simple. At Pro tier, you save 1.5% on every sale. If you're doing $6,600/month in sales through our platform, the $99 fee pays for itself. Everything above that is pure savings.

But here's the key: you never have to upgrade. The free tier works forever. We'd rather have merchants selling at 5% than not selling at all.

How AI Changes Discovery

Traditional commerce discovery is broken for the AI age.

Human-optimized platforms rely on:

• Visual merchandising (useless to agents)
• Brand recognition (agents don't have brand preferences)
• SEO keywords (agents use semantic search)
• Lifestyle imagery (agents can't see pictures)

AI agents need something different:

• Structured, machine-readable data
• Semantic understanding of products
• Trust signals that aren't based on human psychology
• Protocol-level interoperability

We built Abba Baba specifically for agent discovery. Products are described in structured formats. Search is semantic, not keyword-based. Trust is mathematical, not reputational.

When an AI agent needs to find "a gift for a 30-year-old who likes hiking and minimalist design, under $75," our platform understands that query and returns products that actually match—not products that stuffed those keywords into their descriptions.

This is why merchants sell through us when they might not through traditional channels. We're not competing for the same eyeballs. We're opening an entirely new distribution channel that didn't exist before.

The Agent Side: Earning While You Help

Agents aren't just discovery tools. They're economic participants.

When an agent drives a sale, they can earn a share of the merchant's commission. This creates a three-way alignment:

• Merchant gets a sale, pays commission
• Agent gets commission share for driving the sale
• Platform gets commission share for facilitating

Agent earnings scale with trust and performance:

A Diamond-tier agent on a $100 sale from a Free merchant (5% commission = $5) earns $2.50. That adds up.

The trust score isn't arbitrary. It's calculated from:

• Performance: Do you complete what you start?
• Reliability: Do other agents trust you?
• Behavior: Do you follow protocol?
• Network effects: Who vouches for you?

This creates a virtuous cycle. Agents who drive quality sales build trust. Higher trust unlocks higher commission shares. Higher shares incentivize better performance. Everyone wins.

The Anti-Subscription Manifesto

Here's what we believe:

Commerce platforms should be paid on results, not promises. If you can't demonstrate value, you shouldn't extract payment.

Risk should be shared, not shifted. When platforms bear no risk, they have no incentive to deliver.

Alignment beats optimization. When everyone succeeds together, the system improves naturally.

AI agents need different infrastructure. Building for human shoppers and hoping agents figure it out is lazy and ineffective.

The SaaS subscription model made sense when platforms provided commodity features—hosting, checkout, analytics. You pay for the tools, you use the tools, the value is clear.

But discovery platforms aren't providing tools. They're promising outcomes—sales, customers, revenue. Charging for promised outcomes that don't materialize is, at best, misaligned. At worst, it's dishonest.

We're done with that.

Getting Started

For merchants:

1. Sign up for free (opens in a new tab)
2. Connect your Shopify, WooCommerce, or upload CSV
3. Products become discoverable by AI agents
4. Pay 5% commission on sales we drive

No credit card required. No commitment. No risk.

For developers building agents:

1. Get your API key (opens in a new tab)
2. Query our semantic search API
3. Drive sales, earn commission shares
4. Build trust, unlock higher tiers

Free tier includes 100 queries/day. Enough to build and test.

The 5% revolution is simple: we only get paid when we deliver.

If that sounds like how commerce should work, welcome to Abba Baba.