RoboBusiness 2026 Panel: Why RaaS Needs More Than a Subscription

Panelists for the RaaS discussion, from left to right: Bill Booth of RoboWorx, Rick Faulk of Locus Robotics, and Alex Linde of Aescape.

Robots as a service, or RaaS, has become one of the most closely watched business models in commercial robotics. By shifting automation from a large capital investment to a recurring operating expense, RaaS can make robotics more accessible to customers while giving providers a path to more predictable revenue and longer-term customer relationships.

But the RaaS model is also more demanding than it may first appear. A successful RaaS business is not just a robot sold on subscription, nor is it simply a rental financing model. It requires careful decisions about pricing, financing, deployment, service coverage, uptime guarantees, customer success, and the operating costs that come with supporting fleets in the field.

Building a RaaS organization from the ground up requires a different strategy from a pure engineering OEM or CAPEX-based business. Successful services businesses understand product design, organizational structure, sales compensation, service-level agreements, and service delivery requirements.

Those questions will be front and center during “The RaaS Playbook: Pricing, Service, and Scale,” a RoboBusiness 2026 session scheduled for Oct. 20 from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m. PT in Room 207 of the Santa Clara Convention Center.

Mike Oitzman, senior editor at The Robot Report, will moderate the discussion. It will feature Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics; Bill Booth, technology sales, marketing, and business development at Roboworx; and Alex Linde, chief product officer at Aescape.

The panel will move beyond the high-level promise of recurring revenue to explore what it takes to make RaaS work in practice. Attendees can expect insights on structuring contracts, setting service-level expectations, defining customer success metrics, managing maintenance programs, and deciding when a RaaS model is the right fit compared with a traditional capital purchase.

For robotics founders and executives, the session offers a chance to pressure-test assumptions about unit economics, service obligations, and scale. For product, sales, and customer success teams, it will provide a clearer view of how RaaS changes the customer relationship after deployment. And for investors and end users, it will help clarify what separates a durable service business from a compelling pitch.

As commercial robotics companies continue to search for scalable paths to adoption, RaaS remains both an opportunity and an operational challenge. Anyone building, selling, funding, or evaluating robotics services should attend this session to hear directly from leaders who are working through those challenges in the market today.

The distinction matters because RaaS changes the economics of robotics. Instead of a one-time sale, the provider must support the robot over time, which turns service into a core part of the product. That requires a service organization capable of installation, monitoring, maintenance, repair, and customer support at scale.

It also affects sales compensation. Sales teams may need incentives tied to renewals, uptime, and customer outcomes rather than only initial bookings. Service-level agreements must be realistic, because missing uptime commitments can erase margins and damage trust.

The session is aimed at helping attendees understand those trade-offs. It will discuss when RaaS is a good fit and when a traditional capital purchase may be better for the customer. It will also cover how to structure contracts that protect both provider and customer.

For companies considering RaaS, the panel will offer a practical playbook rather than a theoretical overview. It will address the operational discipline required to run a fleet, the metrics that matter, and the organizational changes needed to deliver services reliably.

RoboBusiness 2026 attendees will have the chance to hear from leaders who are actively building and scaling RaaS businesses. The discussion is designed for founders, executives, product teams, sales teams, customer success teams, investors, and end users.

Registration is open for RoboBusiness 2026, which celebrates 20 years of the event. Those interested in RaaS can register to attend the session and the broader conference.