This IDC Market Perspective defines monetization operations (MonOps) as the cross-functional discipline organizations need to design, execute, and optimize monetization strategy and argues that pricing, not finance or engineering, should lead it. IDC’s research finds that most technology suppliers price by committee or through underpowered pricing teams, a gap that finance, engineering, and top-down leadership mandates are filling by default as forecasting pressure and agentic AI cost accountability intensify. This document unpacks MonOps across four pillars — organizational structure, required capabilities, critical processes, and enabling technology stack — and makes the case that visibility into a monetization problem and speed of reaction to cost are not substitutes for the commercial judgment pricing is built to provide.“Every function in the organization can see when monetization is broken. That does not mean every function is equipped to fix it. Pricing has been under-resourced for exactly the decisions that now matter most, and closing this gap is the work in front of monetization leaders in 2026.” — Tiffany McCormick, senior research director, AI Monetization, Pricing Strategies, and Business Models at IDC