How it works
The company represents a capability, sets a material price for it, and sells it before it exists in the represented form. Payment is taken immediately. Delivery is scheduled by the seller, and rescheduled by the seller.
The mechanism that makes this a pattern rather than an ordinary commercial disappointment is asymmetric delivery risk. The company receives the payment. The customer bears the uncertainty over whether the thing arrives. The company controls the timetable and the technical prerequisites. The customer has no symmetrical remedy — no refund right, no escrow, no non-delivery clause.
Imminence is often used commercially. A statement that the price will rise as delivery approaches converts the customer’s uncertainty into a reason to buy sooner rather than a reason to wait.
Recognition checklist
What to look for
Material money for a future thing
The price is significant, not a token deposit, and what it buys does not yet exist in the form described.
The seller owns the schedule
Delivery dates are set, missed and reset by the company. There is no external commitment the customer can hold it to.
The requirements can change
What the capability needs to run on — hardware, platform, approval — is redefined by the seller after the sale.
No symmetrical way out
The company keeps the money whether or not it delivers. The customer has no refund right and no non-delivery remedy.
Imminence is sold
Nearness to delivery, or future value, is used to accelerate the purchase decision.
Type specimen
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving.
From October 2016, Tesla sold “Full Self-Driving Capability” at prices laddered from $3,000 to $15,000. The hardware requirement was represented three times across successive generations; in January 2025 the chief executive conceded that the third-generation computer in roughly four million cars could not deliver the product, and as of the July 2026 earnings call no upgrade programme, timeline or cost existed. No refund policy has ever been offered. Refunds have been obtained only by individual customers who fought for them in arbitration or small claims. In February 2026 the option to buy the software outright was eliminated in North America, leaving prior purchasers on a discontinued product.
Read the full Tesla assessment → — CHI 68 / CVI 81 / CFS +13.
Promissory Product Monetization is a newly adopted Lexicon entry. Company assignments are recorded as CHI assessments test for it.
Important distinction
Not the same as a preorder.
This pattern is not synonymous with ordinary preorders, with crowdfunding generally, with delayed delivery on its own, with Subscription Creep, with Price Creep, or with vaporware where no customer money changed hands.
A preorder for a finished product with a shipping date and a cancellation right is not this pattern. Crowdfunding that discloses development risk and treats backers as backers is not this pattern. A product that simply arrives late is not this pattern.
What distinguishes it is the asymmetry: money moves at once, delivery risk sits entirely with the buyer, the seller defines both the timetable and the requirements, and there is no symmetrical refund or non-delivery remedy. Price Creep describes a price ladder; Subscription Creep describes what the arrangement can become; neither describes selling the future as present inventory.