OpenAI quietly changed how enterprise GPT-5 is sold — and most procurement teams haven't caught up yet. The new model blends per-seat, usage-based, and reserved-capacity pricing in ways that reward sophisticated buyers and punish naive ones.
Reserved capacity is the new IT budget line
The three-bucket negotiation
- Quantify monthly token consumption per bucket before the sales call — not after.
- Ask for a committed-use discount on bucket one with a quarterly true-up.
- Negotiate a burst allowance for bucket two — 2–3x your average, no surcharge.
The best enterprise LLM deal in 2026 isn't the cheapest per-token price — it's the contract that matches how your team actually consumes.
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