8×8’s latest announcement is a pair of leadership appointments. The more important story sits in its financials. Usage-based revenue, the slice tied to communications APIs, digital channels and AI, grew more than 70% year on year in the company’s fourth quarter and now makes up about 23% of service revenue, up from 14% a year earlier. That shift is real. It is also repricing the business.
What 8×8 actually announced
On 8 October, 8×8 named Jamie Snaddon Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, and Nerea Gandarias Managing Director for EMEA, succeeding him. Both appointments are effective immediately. The release frames the moves around growth opportunities, strategic execution and long-term value creation.
That is a personnel story. The technology and business story sits elsewhere, and 8×8’s own disclosures tell it more clearly than any press release.
The usage-based revenue shift, in numbers
Fiscal 2026, which ended in March, was a turning point. Total revenue reached $735.8 million, up 3%. Service revenue was $715.3 million, up 3%. More striking, the company posted its first GAAP-profitable full year since fiscal 2015.
Usage-based revenue drove that. It grew more than 50% for the full year and more than 70% in the fourth quarter. It now sits at roughly 23% of service revenue, up from about 14% a year earlier. 8×8’s own three-year model takes it to 25–30% next year and 35–40% by fiscal 2030. Subscriptions fall from 80% to 60–65% over the same period.
Why usage-based revenue carries lower margins
The growth comes with a bill. Usage-based offerings carry a lower gross margin than seat subscriptions, and 8×8 says so plainly.
Non-GAAP gross margin fell to 65.6% in fiscal 2026 from 69.8% a year earlier. In the fourth quarter it was 64.2%, against 69.0%. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027 it dropped to 62%, from 68%. The company’s own target model points to a non-GAAP gross margin in the “low to mid 50s” by fiscal 2030.
The mechanics are simple. A seat licence costs almost nothing to serve once the software exists. A communications API call or an AI agent session costs money every time it runs. 8×8’s GAAP cost of service revenue rose to 34.2% of service revenue in the fourth quarter, from 29.0% a year earlier.
The metering problem underneath the model
Moving to usage-based revenue also moves the risk. The finance chief, Kevin Kraus, was direct on the earnings call. Usage is now 23% of revenue, and the company has less visibility into it three or four quarters out, because it is not contracted. That is why 8×8 guides conservatively on usage.
Independent data agrees. Usage-based and hybrid pricing leaks 2–5% of revenue to billing errors, against 0.5–1% for flat subscriptions, according to analysis of MGI Research data. Metering gaps are the largest single source. A dropped event is revenue that never gets billed.
The technology driving the shift
8×8 did not stumble into usage-based revenue. It built the products that generate it.
AI Studio, launched in April 2026, lets teams build voice and digital AI agents in natural language. It runs on the platform’s own telephony and data, so the model reaches real-time voice and network telemetry directly. AI Routing, launched in June, uses a four-factor scoring engine to match customers to the best expert anywhere in the organisation. Pulse, also in June, turns calls, emails and tickets into a governed company memory.
Each of these bills on consumption. AI Studio carries a free tier for building and charges once agents run in production. That is the model change in miniature: the seat stops being the unit, and the interaction becomes it. 8×8 says more than 5 billion interactions ran through its communications APIs in fiscal 2026.
The market context: seats to meters
8×8 is not alone. The whole enterprise-software market is moving from seats to meters, and AI is the reason.
Traditional SaaS runs at 80–90% gross margins. AI-native products average about 52%, with inference alone consuming roughly 23% of revenue at scale. Around 60% of SaaS companies now run some form of usage-based pricing. Gartner expects at least 40% of enterprise SaaS spend to shift to usage, agent or outcome-based pricing by 2030.
Contact-centre vendors show the same pattern. NICE charges $0.25 per AI session on its top tier. Genesys meters AI at $1 per token. Amazon Connect bills $0.038 per voice minute. Intercom’s Fin is priced at $0.99 per resolution.
Each is trading predictable seat revenue for consumption.
The competitive picture
8×8 sits in a crowded field. In CPaaS, Twilio leads with about 25% global share, followed by Infobip and Sinch. In contact-centre software, NICE, Genesys and Five9 lead on revenue, with 8×8 the smallest of Metrigy’s leaders, holding its place on customer scores.
Its answer is integration. 8×8 argues that UCaaS, CCaaS and CPaaS are converging into one platform, and that a customer buying all three is stickier. Customers using three or more 8×8 products grew 16% year on year. The company also bought its way into reach, acquiring Maven Labs in Singapore, CallRoute for Microsoft Teams, and Sipsynergy in the UK.
What to watch
Whether usage-based revenue keeps growing fast enough to offset the margin it gives up. Whether 8×8’s gross margin holds above the low-50s floor its own model implies. And whether usage turns out to be as predictable as the seat it replaces.
Editor’s Note
This analysis draws on 8×8‘s leadership-appointment release, its fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2027 quarterly results and stockholder letters, its investor presentation and earnings-call remarks, its product documentation for AI Studio, AI Routing and Pulse, and market research from Metrigy, Omdia, Gartner, Frost & Sullivan, ICONIQ, OpenView and Lago. Where a figure is a company’s own or an estimate, we say so.