IBM Bob Premium Package for i review: is it worth $60 a seat for a small shop?

If you run a small IBM i shop, the question about IBM Bob’s Premium Package for i is not whether it is impressive. It is whether it is worth $60 a seat a month for developers who already know your codebase. That is $20 for base Bob plus the $40 IBM i add-on, and for a four-person team it comes to close to $2,900 a year.

The case for it comes down to one connection. Since June 24, Bob can talk to your IBM i directly, the same way the Code for IBM i VS Code extension does, so the AI works on the box instead of on a copy of your source dragged down to a laptop. That single change is the difference between a demo and something an RPG developer can actually use. Whether it is worth the money depends on what the generated code looks like on your programs, and you can find that out for $20 before committing anyone.

What the Premium Package for i actually adds

Bob is IBM’s agentic development platform. Bob 1.0 reached general availability on March 24, 2026, and IBM followed with a global launch announcement on April 28, after a long internal pilot. Unlike a plain code-completion tool, it runs across the whole lifecycle with role-based modes for architect, developer, and security engineer. It routes each task across multiple models behind the scenes, including Anthropic Claude, Mistral, and IBM Granite, so you are not picking a model yourself. None of that was built for IBM i out of the box.

The Premium Package for i is the layer that makes Bob speak IBM i. It adds an IBM i Developer Mode, a persona configured for the native languages: RPG, CL, SQL and DB2 for i, COBOL, and DDS. It bundles around 40 new skills and workflows and roughly 30 specialized tools. The tools are the practical part. Per IBM’s POWERUp keynote, they let Bob read and write QSYS and IFS objects, run CL commands and SQL statements, launch 5250 sessions, and manage library lists. That is the same level of reach a privileged user profile has, so it belongs under the same authority discipline. Our rundown of what to lock down on IBM i before AI gets this close covers what that looks like in practice. It also adds retrieval-augmented generation that grounds the model in IBM i specific knowledge, so it knows things like the System/36-era RPG cycle or how to call SQL services on the platform rather than guessing from generic training data.

Two workflows get named directly: replacing record-level access with SQL, and generating unit test cases. Both are real IBM i modernization chores that eat senior developer time, so they are sensible targets.

The native connection is the whole story

To understand why this release matters, you have to know what was wrong with Bob before it.

When Bob 1.0 reached IBM i developers, the loudest complaint was simple. To work on your code, you had to download all of it to the PC first. For a green-screen shop with source living in QSYS source physical files and the IFS, that is a non-starter. The tool could not see the system it was supposed to modernize.

The Premium Package fixes exactly that. By reusing the native connection from VS Code with the Code for IBM i extension, Bob now reads and writes objects on the box, runs commands against it, and works against live libraries. This is the gap that separated a clever assistant from a usable one, and closing it is the reason this release is worth your attention rather than a press release you skim and forget. If you tried Bob earlier and bounced off it for this reason, that objection is gone.

It is the same architectural truth we keep coming back to in our coverage of where AI helps IBM i shops: a tool that cannot reach DB2 for i and the IFS where the real logic lives is a toy. One that can is worth testing.

Pricing: what base Bob and the Pack actually cost

There are two layers to price out: base Bob, and the IBM i add-on that sits on top.

Base Bob pricing is public and exact. Bob Pro is $20 per user per month with 50 Bobcoins. Bob Pro+ is $60 per month with 180 Bobcoins. Bob Ultra is $200 per month with 1,000 Bobcoins. There is a free 30-day trial with 50 Bobcoins, but it covers base Bob only. IBM states that a subscription is required to trial a premium package.

Bobcoins are metered credits that Bob actions consume. IBM has not published a clean per-action burn rate, so you cannot model your monthly cost on paper before you run real work. You find out by using it. For a platform whose customers plan capacity years out, that is an uncomfortable way to buy.

The Premium Package for i sits on top of base Bob as an add-on, and IBM does publish a number. The individual plan starts at $40 per authorized user. Stack that on a Bob Pro seat and you are at $60 per user per month before taxes, Bobcoin overages, and any support charge that appears at checkout. New subscribers get the first package month free until December 31, 2026. Enterprise pricing, which now also covers running Bob self-hosted on your own OpenShift cluster, is the part that is still a sales call: IBM sells it as an individual monthly subscription, an enterprise-wide monthly subscription, or an Enterprise Authorized User Advanced Support subscription, and only the individual number is posted. So an individual seat is knowable today, the enterprise cost is a conversation, and the bobcoin burn on top of either is the figure you cannot model until you run real work.

Where it genuinely helps, and where it does not

The honest split matters more than the feature list.

It helps where the work is mechanical and you can check the output. Documenting an undocumented RPG program, drafting unit tests for code that has none, and turning slow record-at-a-time access into set-based SQL are all jobs where a competent assistant grounded in IBM i saves real hours. The RAG grounding is the part that should make the RPG and DB2 for i suggestions less generic than a stock model would produce.

It does not replace the person who knows what to ask for. The RPG-to-SQL conversion is a vendor-stated capability. Until you have seen what it does against your own gnarly production data, where packed decimal precision and implicit business rules hide, treat it as unproven. Read everything it writes. Test against real data. The model will happily produce SQL that looks right and quietly changes a result in an edge case it never saw.

The 45% productivity number IBM cites is from its own surveyed developers, self-reported. Useful as a signal, not as evidence for your shop.

This is the line where doing the work yourself still counts. The Pack automates a slice of modernization, but the developer who decides which programs to convert, writes the prompt that gets a usable answer, and verifies the result is the one who makes it pay off. That judgment is the skill our IBM i AI Field Guide is built to teach, and the tool makes it more valuable, not less.

Who should buy now, and who should wait

Run one paid evaluation month if you write RPG or DB2 for i and you have a real task to point it at. Skip the free trial for this: it covers base Bob, not the IBM i package. A new subscriber gets the $40 add-on waived for the first month through December 31, 2026, so a full month of the IBM i features costs $20 rather than $60 on a Pro plan. The native connection alone justifies that, and grading it on your own code is the only way to learn whether the IBM i Developer Mode output holds up.

Hold a team rollout until it earns one. At $60 a seat, a four-person team is close to $2,900 a year. “We ran it for a month and it earned its keep on these three programs” is a far better basis for a purchase order than a sales demo.

Bottom line

The Bob Premium Package for i is the release that makes IBM’s AI usable on actual IBM i systems, because it finally connects to the box instead of a copy. That is a real step, and the IBM i Developer Mode, RAG grounding, and named modernization workflows are pointed at the right problems. The drag is cost stacking: the Pack is a $40 per authorized user add-on on top of base Bob, so an individual seat is around $60 a month, and the metered bobcoins on top still resist forecasting.

Spend $20 on one evaluation month, judge it on your own code, and only then sign anything for the team. Rated 4 out of 5, with most of the missing point sitting in the stacked cost and an unproven track record on generated SQL.

IBM has already followed up once. See what changed under the hood with the Bob 2.0 platform update for whether the July release moves this verdict.

Frequently asked questions

How much does IBM Bob cost?

Base Bob has three paid tiers: Pro at $20 per user per month with 50 Bobcoins, Pro+ at $60 with 180, and Ultra at $200 with 1,000. The Premium Package for i is a $40 a month add-on on top of a paid base plan, so a Pro seat with the IBM i package runs $60 a month. New subscribers get the first package month free until December 31, 2026. The free 30-day trial covers base Bob only, not the IBM i package.

Does IBM Bob run on the IBM i directly?

With the Premium Package for i, yes. It uses the same native connection as the Code for IBM i VS Code extension, so Bob can read and write QSYS and IFS objects, run CL commands and SQL, launch 5250 sessions, and manage library lists on the box. Base Bob without the Pack made you pull source down to the PC first, which was the main early complaint.

Can IBM Bob convert RPG record-level access to SQL?

IBM lists replacing record-level access with SQL as one of the Premium Package workflows, and it ships an IBM i Developer Mode plus RAG grounding for RPG, CL, DDS, COBOL, and DB2 for i. Treat the conversion as assisted, not automatic. Read every generated SQL statement and test it against real data before trusting it.

Is the Premium Package for i worth it yet?

For a shop doing active RPG or DB2 for i work, it is worth one paid month. The free trial will not show you the IBM i features, because premium packages require a subscription, but new subscribers get the first package month free until December 31, 2026, so a full month on a Pro plan costs $20. Grade the output on a program you know well before committing a team to $60 a seat.