commercetools’ Dirk Hoerig on Agentic Commerce, Consumption-Based Pricing, and Building for the Future

TL;DR

Dirk Hoerig, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at commercetools, joined Chargebee’s Second Acts podcast to discuss how the company scaled past $150M ARR by building for adaptability from day one. In this episode, he shares:

• Why commercetools went API-first long before it was standard
  
• The logic behind order-based pricing instead of GMV or usage fees
  
• Details on how they launched an MCP, enabling agentic execution at scale
  
• Lessons from stepping out of the CEO role after 14 years
  
• His advice to founders: Don’t quit. Stay resilient when it gets hard

Listen to the full episode:
YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

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In this episode of Second Acts, Chargebee CEO Krish Subramanian speaks with Dirk Hoerig, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at commercetools. They cover how the company navigated major platform shifts, the logic behind its pricing model, and what it takes to scale without building technical debt that slows innovation.

Why commercetools bet on APIs before they were cool

Back in 2010, Dirk saw two forces reshaping enterprise software: the cloud had finally matured, and mobile was overtaking desktop.

But e-commerce platforms hadn’t kept up. Most were still on-premise systems built for a single-channel desktop world.

“We asked ourselves: is what we built for the past good enough for the problems customers will have in the future?”

That question led commercetools to take a fundamentally different approach: cloud-native, API-first, and composable. No bolted-on modules. No faux-headless rebrands. Infrastructure came first. Commerce functionality followed.

Dirk says, “We didn’t want to make something 10% better. We wanted something 10x different.”

Why order-based pricing beats GMV or API volume

commercetools serves large enterprises with complex catalogs and global operations. But pricing had to work for both developers and CFOs.

Rather than charging by API volume or GMV (Gross Merchandise Value, or the total value of goods sold before fees and returns), commercetools charges on order consumption. This pricing model is predictable, tied to business outcomes, and easier to scale.

Dirk acknowledged the tradeoffs. Some customers extract more value than their order volume suggests, but the alignment this model creates outweighs the exceptions.

Agentic commerce is already here

commercetools didn’t have to retrofit its platform for AI. Its architecture was already built on well-documented, discoverable APIs that work across any interface.

That foundation made it straightforward to launch one of the first MCP (Machine-Consumable Protocol) implementations, enabling agents like Google’s Gemini and Microsoft Copilot to interact directly with backend systems.

Dirk told Krish, “If AI is the buyer, we’re already set up for that. Our platform works with any agent that can read an API.”

Speed helped. Readiness made it work.

Competing on differentiation, not labels

In a crowded market, Dirk and commercetools don’t focus on competitors. They focus on differentiation.

He sees the market in three buckets: legacy vendors with strong enterprise relationships, niche startups with limited traction, and SMB players trying to move upmarket. Each has strengths. And Dirk believes that that sort of expansive competition is a sign of a healthy category and pushes them to innovate better.  

From CEO to Chief Innovation Officer

After 14 years as CEO, Dirk moved into a new role to help commercetools scale beyond $150 million ARR. He brought in Andrew Burton to lead the next phase.

“It wasn’t about replacing my role here with somebody else. It was about how we can get more things done.”

Dirk now focuses more on product strategy, AI, and key customer relationships, while continuing to support operations and go-to-market. It’s a founder’s sweet spot: influence without being a bottleneck.

Resilience over brilliance

Dirk’s advice for founders in the AI era is simple, but hard-won:

“Don’t quit.”

Good timing helps. So does luck. But neither matters if you fold when things get hard. In Dirk’s view, success doesn’t come from perfect ideas. It comes from showing up, again and again, even when momentum fades.

“Everyone can win when it’s easy. The real test is whether you can win when it’s hard.”

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 Listen to the full episode

Learn how commercetools structured its platform from scratch, built a monetization model that scales, and navigated a leadership handoff while staying future-ready.