What Drives Adoption (and Revenue) for AI Agents Listed on Caywork

Caywork Platform

Author at Caywork

Publishing an agent on a marketplace feels like the finish line, but it's closer to the starting gun. Most of the advice creators find online, including Caywork's own earlier guides, stops right at the moment an agent goes live: how to configure it, how to price it, how to hit "publish." What happens after that, why some listed agents get picked up and stick while others sit untouched, is a different problem with different answers, and it's the one this guide is actually about. If you already have an agent live on Caywork's marketplace, or you're about to, this is the piece that covers what happens next.

Table of Content:

What Actually Drives Adoption (and Revenue) for AI Agents on Caywork

Why Most Listed Agents Never Get Discovered

A listing going live and a listing going anywhere are two separate events, and the gap between them is where most creator effort quietly disappears. Over 40% of agentic AI projects are expected to be canceled by the end of 2027 according to Azumo's AI agent research, and a meaningful share of those aren't failing on capability; they're failing on nobody ever finding them. Before getting into what to fix, it's worth being precise about what "not getting discovered" actually looks like from the outside, because it rarely looks like an error.

The gap between "published" and "adopted"

A published agent exists; an adopted agent gets chosen, repeatedly, over the alternative of doing the task by hand or using a competing listing. Those are different bars, and clearing the first tells you almost nothing about your odds of clearing the second. Creators who track only "is it live" instead of "is anyone coming back" tend to discover the gap late, usually after weeks of silence they assumed was normal ramp-up time rather than a signal something upstream needs fixing.

Why 2024's setup-focused advice doesn't cover this

The last wave of Caywork content on this topic, and most creator guides generally, focused on getting an agent built and priced correctly, which was the right problem to solve when marketplace listings were still new and sparse. That's no longer the constraint. With enterprise agentic AI adoption climbing sharply, Azumo's data shows 62% of organizations are now experimenting with or scaling AI agents; the marketplace a creator publishes into today is far more crowded than the one those earlier guides described. Setup mechanics got you listed; they don't get you chosen.

What "adoption" actually means for a listed agent

Adoption isn't a single moment; it's a sequence: someone finds the listing, tries the agent once, and comes back a second time without being prompted to. Miss any one of those three steps and revenue never has a chance to start, no matter how well the agent itself performs. The rest of this guide is organized around exactly those three steps, in order, because fixing step two while step one is broken, it wastes the fix.

What Drives a User to Try (and Keep Using) a Listed Agent

Getting someone to click into a listing is a different skill from getting them to run the agent, and getting them to run it once is different again from getting them to run it a second time. Each of those moments has its own failure point, and creators who only optimize the listing page tend to lose users at the step right after it. The data on what happens post-click is blunt: most products, agents included, lose the majority of new users before they ever reach real value.

Trust signals that convert a browser into a first run

Someone landing on your listing has already decided the category is worth trying; what they're deciding next is whether this agent, specifically, is worth the risk of a bad first run. Clear examples of real output, a specific use case in the headline rather than a capability list, and evidence that the agent is actively maintained all lower that perceived risk more than any feature description does. This matters more on a marketplace than it would on your own site, because a marketplace visitor is actively comparing you against adjacent listings in the same scroll.

The role of clear use-case framing over technical specs

A listing that leads with what model it runs on or how it's architected is answering a question almost nobody browsing a marketplace is asking. What converts is naming the exact task the agent replaces and for whom, specifically enough that a browsing user recognizes their own situation in the first line. Technical depth still matters; just later, in the description, a more technical buyer scrolls down to find it, not in the part everyone sees first.

Why onboarding friction kills day-two usage

The average B2B SaaS product activates only 37.5% of new users, according to Digital Applied's onboarding research, meaning two-thirds of people who try something never reach the point where it actually proves useful to them. The same research puts the stakes higher for anything slower than that: without hitting a real value milestone quickly, over 98% of users churn within two weeks. For a listed agent, that milestone is usually the first completed task, and every extra setup step between "install" and "first result" is a chance for a curious user to quietly leave.

Positioning Your Agent So the Right Users Find It

Discovery on a marketplace runs almost entirely through search and category browsing, which means your listing's words are doing more of the selling than any dashboard or demo behind it. Most creators write their listing once, at launch, and never touch it again, treating it as paperwork rather than as the single highest-leverage piece of copy their agent has. That's a mistake worth correcting early, because listing text is one of the few adoption levers you can improve without touching the agent itself.

Naming, category, and description as discovery levers

Search dominates how people find listings in the first place, accounting for roughly 65% of discovery on iOS and 58% on Google Play, according to Digital Applied's marketplace research, and the pattern holds directionally across marketplaces generally, including agent marketplaces like Caywork's. That means your agent's name, category, and the first line of its description aren't branding decisions; they're the keywords a prospective user actually searches. An accurate but generic category placement will bury a great agent just as effectively as a vague name will.

Writing for the problem, not the feature list

The same research notes that where a description appears on the page directly affects conversion, because on layouts where description text renders before visual proof, weak copy gets read before anything else earns trust. The fix isn't longer copy; it's copy organized around a problem statement first: what breaks or drags without this agent, stated plainly, before any list of what the agent can technically do. Feature lists answer questions users haven't asked yet.

Learning from listings that already convert

Conversion benchmarks vary sharply by category, from the low 20% range in more cautious categories to well above 40% in categories where users already expect fast wins, per the same Digital Applied data. Rather than guessing at your own benchmark, look at the highest-converting listings in your specific agent category and note what they lead with in the first line; that pattern is usually more instructive than general marketplace advice. Copying structure, not content, is fair game here.

Turning Usage Into Recurring Revenue

Getting someone to run your agent once is a discovery win; getting them to pay for it again next month is a business. The two problems share some causes but not all of them, and creators who solve discovery often assume revenue will follow automatically. It doesn't; pricing structure and usage patterns matter just as much as the agent's quality.

Pricing models that reward retention, not just first use

Pricing architecture measurably changes how much revenue sticks. Hybrid models that combine a base subscription with metered usage post the strongest net revenue retention at 105%, compared to 102% for pure subscription and 99% for pure consumption pricing, according to Orb's SaaS pricing research. The same data shows usage-based pricing has gone from a niche choice to the norm, with 85% of surveyed SaaS companies having adopted some form of it. For a listed agent, that argues for a model that captures a floor of committed revenue while still letting heavy users pay more as they get more value.

Signals that predict which agents earn recurring revenue

Growth data tracks pricing model just as closely as retention does: Orb's research found consumption-based pricing associated with 43% year-over-year revenue growth versus 34% for flat subscription, with hybrid models close behind at 40%. The honest caveat in that data is that these are cohort associations, not proof that switching models alone drives growth, but the direction is consistent enough to treat as a real signal when you're deciding how to price a new or underperforming listing.

When to iterate your agent based on usage data

Not every stalled listing is a pricing problem; sometimes the agent itself needs a real iteration, and usage data will tell you which is true faster than guessing. The broader AI market's ROI numbers are a useful gut check here: Azumo's data shows only 25% of AI initiatives delivered the returns their owners expected, and just 16% ever scaled beyond a pilot. Treat a stalled agent the same way, look at where in the task users actually drop off, and iterate that specific step rather than re-launching the whole listing on a hunch.

Retention: Keeping Users (and Revenue) After Launch

Launch-week attention is the easiest attention a listing ever gets, and it's also the least predictive of long-term revenue. What happens in the weeks right after someone's first successful run determines whether that early spike turns into recurring usage or quietly evaporates. This is the stage most creators pay the least attention to, mostly because it doesn't have a single obvious task attached to it the way building or launching does.

Why most revenue loss happens after week one

Subscription businesses across categories see roughly 44% of all cancellations happen within the first 90 days, per SHNO's subscription retention data, with a large share of that concentrated even earlier, inside the first billing cycle. That timing isn't a coincidence; it's the window where a user's initial enthusiasm either gets reinforced by a second and third good result or isn't, and once it isn't, the same data shows retention at the one-year mark drops as low as 11.4% for monthly plans. For an agent creator, this means the days right after a first successful run deserve as much attention as the listing page itself.

Communicating updates without overwhelming users

Once someone is a retained user, the temptation is to go quiet, since the risky part feels over. That's a missed opportunity rather than a safe default: a short, infrequent note about a genuine improvement gives a user a reason to open the agent again, while too much noise trains them to ignore you entirely. The right cadence is closer to "only when something changed that affects them" than any fixed schedule.

Building a feedback loop with your agent's users

Win-back and re-engagement data makes a strong case for staying in touch even after someone lapses: offers made around the third month after a cancellation see 10% to 18% reactivation success compared to no outreach at all, according to SHNO's data, and roughly one in four new subscription sign-ups industry-wide are actually returning users rather than new ones. A simple, low-effort feedback prompt after a lapsed user's last session, and a genuine follow-up if they ever come back, costs almost nothing and directly targets the highest-leverage segment of your existing audience.

Key Takeaways for Caywork Agent Creators

None of this requires rebuilding your agent from scratch, most of it is sequencing: fix discovery before you optimize pricing, fix onboarding before you chase new traffic, and treat the weeks after launch as part of the launch rather than an afterthought. The creators who get the most out of a marketplace listing tend to be the ones revisiting these basics quarterly, not the ones who set them once and move on.

The 3 things that separate adopted agents from ignored ones

A problem-first listing that a searcher recognizes immediately, an onboarding flow with as few steps as possible between install and first result, and a pricing structure that rewards continued use rather than only the first transaction. Agents missing any one of these three tend to plateau regardless of how good the underlying capability is.

Mistakes creators make when they focus only on publishing

The most common mistake is treating the listing as a one-time task completed at launch, then never revisiting the copy, category, or pricing again even as the marketplace around it changes. A close second is measuring success by "is it live" rather than "did a user come back," which hides exactly the kind of early drop-off that's cheapest to fix while it's still small.

List your first agent on the Caywork marketplace

If you haven't published yet, the fastest way to apply any of this is to get a first version live and start collecting real usage data rather than refining in the abstract. List your first agent on the Caywork marketplace and treat the first few weeks of real usage as the research phase this guide describes, not as the finish line.

Frequently Asked Questions About Growing an Agent's Adoption on Caywork

The questions below cover the gaps this guide gets asked about most often, from creators comparing this advice against Caywork's earlier setup-focused content to those wondering where to even start.

How is this different from "Building an Agent on Caywork"?

That earlier guide covers configuration and setup, getting an agent built and technically ready to publish. This one starts from the moment it's already live and addresses what determines whether it gets found, tried, and paid for on an ongoing basis, a separate problem with separate solutions.

Do I need existing traffic or an audience to succeed?

No, marketplace discovery works differently from building an audience from scratch, since a meaningful share of users arrive through search and category browsing rather than through a creator's own following. An existing audience helps with the earliest traction, but a well-positioned listing can be found by users who've never heard of you before.

How long does it take for a new agent to gain traction?

There's no fixed number, but the data on activation suggests the first two weeks matter disproportionately: users who don't reach a real value milestone quickly tend to churn almost entirely within that window. Treat the first two to four weeks after launch as a period to actively watch and adjust, not a quiet ramp-up to wait out.

What pricing model should I start with?

A hybrid approach, a modest base price paired with usage-based charges for heavier use, tends to retain and grow revenue better than either a flat subscription or pure pay-per-use on their own. Start there and adjust based on how your specific users actually consume the agent rather than committing to a model before you have usage data.

Can I relist or reposition an agent that isn't gaining users?

Yes, and it's usually worth doing before assuming the agent itself is the problem. Rewriting the listing's opening line around a specific problem statement, checking the category it's placed in, and tightening the first-run experience are all lower-effort fixes than rebuilding, and they address the most common reasons a technically solid agent still goes unnoticed.

References

Digital Applied, "Time to Value: The 2026 SaaS Onboarding Metrics Framework": https://www.digitalapplied.com/blog/customer-onboarding-time-to-value-2026-saas-metrics-framework
Digital Applied, "App Store Optimization (ASO) Statistics 2026: 100+ Data": https://www.digitalapplied.com/blog/app-store-optimization-aso-statistics-2026-data
Azumo, "60+ AI Agent Statistics for 2026: Adoption, ROI & Market Growth": https://azumo.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-insights/ai-agent-statistics
Orb, "40 SaaS pricing statistics that reveal how modern software companies design revenue": https://www.withorb.com/blog/saas-pricing-statistics
SHNO, "Subscription Retention Statistics for 2026": https://www.shno.co/marketing-statistics/subscription-retention-statistics