---
title: "Services as software"
url: https://services.dev/docs/start/why
---
# Services as software

URL: https://services.dev/docs/start/why

> Most paid work is a known sequence of steps. A Service sells the finished job, delivered by AI, with people where you want or need them, and buyers and their agents pay when it's done.

You know a kind of work people pay for: a filing, a return, a booked meeting, a reviewed claim. Most of it is a known sequence of steps. Gather the facts, draft, check, sign where the law says, file, and get paid. AI now does most of those steps well, and a review pass on every job costs cents. So the finished job, not the hour, is what you sell, and software can stand behind it.

## The glue is the hard part

The AI isn't what stands between you and that business. The glue is: a workflow engine, a review queue, a market of credentialed people, payments, payouts, a site, an API, an MCP server, docs and two portals, all before the first paid job. services.dev is that layer. One `Service({...})` generates all of it, under your brand.

- **AI delivers every job by default.** With no `human` line, no person touches it.
- **People come in where you want or need them.** A reviewer on the jobs a review flags, because you want one there. A signature only a credentialed person may give, because the work requires it. A credentialed step meets licensing by design.
- **Buyers pay when it's done.** People, and the agents that buy for them, order a finished job at a price. An agent can buy a job; it can't hire by the hour.

## What every Service states

What comes in, what goes out and what it costs are required: leave `price` out and your editor says `Property 'price' is missing.` The rest defaults: delivered within 48 hours, charged on delivery or on the last submit step's receipt, done by AI with an adversarial review, and no person until you write `human` ([every key](https://services.dev/docs/service/fields.md)). Every surface prints the terms they add up to:

```txt
translation · $49 per job, within 48 hours, charged on delivery.
  terms   Charged on delivery. Cancel at $0 until it ships. Send it back with a note and the AI redoes it, or you pay $0. Final 7 days after delivery.
```

The market's word for this is an SLA. Here the terms aren't a document beside the work: they're written from the Service itself, so they can't say more than it does, and they grow with it. Add a signer and a registry filing, and the line reads:

```txt
filed-translation · $89 per job, within 48 hours, charged on file's receipt.
  terms   Charged on file's receipt. Cancel at $0 until file is done, except the work a person attested once the signature before file is done. Send it back with a note and the AI redoes it, or you pay $0. Final 7 days after delivery.
```

## What it isn't

| It isn't | Because | What a Service does with it |
|---|---|---|
| A tool the buyer runs | A tool hands the work back: the buyer still does the job, faster | Runs the tool as a step and sells the result |
| Hours of someone's time | Hours make the buyer manage the work | Prices the job, and pays a person per act at the steps you place them |
| A record or an answer from an API | Software and data sold as a service are building blocks: they answer one question and stop | Calls them as steps, with your code, a URL or a submission, and sells what they add up to |
| A queue of tasks for your team | A queue is how work moves inside a business, not what a buyer pays for | Keeps the queue inside the job, behind one price and one deadline |

A record can still be the whole Service when the record is the finished work: the Service submits the request, holds the order, and charges on the receipt.

## What it changes

Buyers and their agents order at any hour, AI delivers most jobs in minutes, and your margin grows as AI takes more of the steps.

## One question decides

Ask who holds the work until it's done. If the answer is the buyer, it's a tool, a feed or a team. If it's you, write it as a Service. Work AI finishes alone starts at [your own Service](https://services.dev/docs/own.md). Work that needs a credentialed signature starts at [the shape it resembles](https://services.dev/docs/start/shapes.md).

## Next

**[How a job runs](https://services.dev/docs/start/how-it-runs.md)**: one order, carried through six stops from the first input to the last cent.

---

- Up: [Your first paid job](https://services.dev/docs.md)
- Previous: [The whole system](https://services.dev/docs/start/system.md)
- Next: [How a job runs](https://services.dev/docs/start/how-it-runs.md)