Why AI token costs should be benchmarked against human labor, not SaaS subscriptions

The mental model most people use for AI pricing is anchored to traditional subscription software — recoiling at a $20/month Netflix price hike, for instance. That framing is wrong for AI agents. The right question is: how much would it have cost a human to do the same thing? If an agent researches and drafts an entire board memo — the kind that takes days of a CEO's time — and it costs $150 in tokens, the real comparison is the opportunity cost of your own hours, not a $10/month SaaS subscription. Anchoring on value delivered, not on subscription price norms, is the reframe that needs to happen broadly.