Pay when an improvement ships
Most software charges you for showing up: seats, tiers, renewals. Stern Stella charges when an improvement ships. That's the whole model.
How the model works
A promotion is one improvement that actually ships: a change proven safe that applied itself, or a change you approved that went live. You pay a flat fee per promotion, once. The saving repeats on every run after that.
A pass is Stella sweeping your processes looking for improvements. Passes are free, always. Stella can look all year, find nothing worth doing, and you'd pay nothing.
There's a floor, too. We never charge unless the projected 12-month saving is at least four times the fee. A change that can't clear that bar never gets proposed.
Silver, gold, platinum
Every promotion lands in one of three tiers, sized by the projected yearly saving, measured from your real runs. Human steps are sized by time saved. AI steps by money saved.
- Silver. Everyday wins. A modest yearly cost saving on an AI step, or hours given back across the year on a human one.
- Gold. Wins you'd notice in a budget line: a real yearly cost reduction on an AI step, or serious recovered time on a human one.
- Platinum. The big structural ones - the kind that change what a whole process costs to run for a year.
Bigger tier, bigger flat fee. And the fee always stays small next to the saving, because of the floor above.
Guardrails you control
- Consent up front. Nothing applies and nothing bills until an owner at your company signs off, once, on exactly what may auto-apply and how it's charged.
- A monthly ceiling you set. Stella stops at your cap and never passes it. You can change the cap whenever you like.
- The ledger. Every change, fee and measured saving in one running record your CFO can audit. Every charge points at the change behind it.
What do you never pay for?
- Passes. Stella looking and finding nothing costs nothing.
- Suggestions you decline. A no is free.
- The Cost X-Ray. The read-only report of where your money and time go is free.
- Seats and volume. There's no per-user fee and no per-run fee. Run your processes as much as you like.
Book a call for current rates
Why no numbers here? Rates are flat, differ by tier, and change over time. Book a demo and we'll walk you through them - and run your free Cost X-Ray, so you see likely savings before you spend a cent.