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Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

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Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#271

Post by AlchemistCamp »

pc wrote: post #155
merlinbeard wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We process a significant amount of charges through Stripe and this is hitting us hard. We’re basically being told that you’d like to keep some of our money for yourself. We were never told that we should expect such a fee increase. This smells a lot like bait and switch.

I'm sorry that it feels that way. Stripe Billing's pricing has been public since 2018. (We didn't charge any of our existing users from the outset precisely because we wanted to avoid any sense that there's a bait-and-switch. We wanted to wait until we really were confident that we had a good product that businesses are willing to pay for.)

I created an account and integrated Subscriptions in 2018. At no point was I told that I would later be charged extra for doing so. On the contrary, I was later told that my account was "upgraded" to Billing for free.

> I'm sorry that it feels that way.

It's not just that it feels this way. It is this way. I'm still on the Subscriptions API and haven't seen anything in Billing compelling enough to rewrite my code to implement.

I'm not saying any other payment processor is better. They may not be. It's just that while I deeply respect some of your broader ethical stands, this kind of behavior is dismaying.

Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#272

Post by Aeolun »

pc wrote: post #149
cabalos wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that spinning this as a several-year grace period is a bit disingenuous. I'm a huge Stripe fan, but this is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Here's the exact notification that went out on April 6, 2018 in the dashboard: "As a user of Stripe Subscriptions, you will get all the functionality of Stripe Billing's starter plan with no change in price. You can continue using it free of charge on your existing Stripe…

You're right. It would have been a lot better if we'd made explicit that we weren't intending to make a permanent commitment. This is good feedback for the next time we do something like this. (Our actual thinking was that we'd iterate on the product for a few years until we were confident it was good and worth paying for -- with both large and small companies using and paying for it -- and then revisit.)

I’m more inclined to say that you’re deliberately going back on your words.

Once you tell someone they can continue using it as is forever, you cannot later say ‘actually, we meant just a few years’.

Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#273

Post by edoceo »

conductr wrote: post #215
cabalos wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right; regardless of which model you pick, one side is going to be affected more. I'm sure you ran the math on it and saw Stripe customers skewed closer to the $10/mo sub than the $1,000/mo sub. In the survey, there were a lot of options for dual pricing models. It must have been something you were considering. I'd be curious to hear why this was decided against? To be honest, none of the new Billing features…

I may be out of date but thought the 2.9% price was already a premium price vs getting a merchant account/gateway and the Stripe API was the value for which you paid the premium. In which case I’d expect the product features to grow over time without increased pricing. Acting like new revenue is required to grow feature set is a half baked excuse when simple explanation that they intend to further monetize existing f…

I have PayPal subscriptions billing, it's 2.9% + $0.30/txn - this might be slightly less than Stripe now?

Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#274

Post by freewilly1040 »

iffycan wrote: post #223
pc wrote: post #93

(Stripe cofounder.) Hi folks -- as Edwin points out elsewhere in the thread, the article title isn't accurate. (I'll update or delete my comment if it's fixed.) [Update: it was changed. It used to read "Stripe is now charging 0.5% more for recurring charges."] You can happily make recurring charges yourself and no additional fees are incurred. Lots of Stripe customers do this and we don't charge anything extra for it…

When I first signed up with Stripe years ago, it was a breath of fresh air. Stripe did one thing exceedingly well, at an understandable price and took minutes to integrate with. I could sell Stripe to my developer friends (and did, a lot!) in a single sentence: "You can add credit card charging to your site in about 15 minutes for 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction." I can't do that anymore. Stripe is no longer a single-sent…

Charging one rate for all payments sounds nice. But not all payments cost the same for Stripe. One rate for all customers means that you are breaking even / losing money on some transactions and making money on others. In other words, you're asking some of your customers to subsidize others, because.... it makes the product simpler to sell. Why would anyone agree to the wrong side of that bargain as a customer?

Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#275

Post by Aeolun »

freewilly1040 wrote: post #274
iffycan wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first signed up with Stripe years ago, it was a breath of fresh air. Stripe did one thing exceedingly well, at an understandable price and took minutes to integrate with. I could sell Stripe to my developer friends (and did, a lot!) in a single sentence: "You can add credit card charging to your site in about 15 minutes for 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction." I can't do that anymore. Stripe is no longer a single-sent…

Charging one rate for all payments sounds nice. But not all payments cost the same for Stripe. One rate for all customers means that you are breaking even / losing money on some transactions and making money on others. In other words, you're asking some of your customers to subsidize others, because.... it makes the product simpler to sell. Why would anyone agree to the wrong side of that bargain as a customer?

Because it makes the product easier to buy? In the past I could buy stripe and know exactly what my costs were going to be. Looking at the pricing page now it’s a fucking swamp.

If I add all their percentages up I’m paying 10% per transaction.

Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#276

Post by ericd »

Loughla wrote: post #92
polote wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, we're kind of hostage to it. The day you decided to go with Stripe you started being hostage of them, but this is not a bad thing, this is business, you choose a partner, they are allowed to change the terms if the contract permit it. People on HN always think they deserve to be treated better than others

>People on HN always think they deserve to be treated better than others I have noticed a significant attitude of, "I originally signed up for this product with 'x' cost and 'x' features, and you have zero right to change anything about that." It seems like a basic contract negotiation process would ferret that out - I thought that was a business thing to do. I work in higher ed, and we absolutely have to have contra…

I think trust in your providers treating you well is required for low-touch SaaS sales for key infrastructure to work well. If you don't trust your counterparties, then you get long contract negotiations and minimum viable contract sizes balloon, as many potential buyers just won't be willing to be dependent on your company without assurances.

Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#277

Post by posguy »

edoceo wrote: post #273
conductr wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be out of date but thought the 2.9% price was already a premium price vs getting a merchant account/gateway and the Stripe API was the value for which you paid the premium. In which case I’d expect the product features to grow over time without increased pricing. Acting like new revenue is required to grow feature set is a half baked excuse when simple explanation that they intend to further monetize existing f…

I have PayPal subscriptions billing, it's 2.9% + $0.30/txn - this might be slightly less than Stripe now?

Considering the Durbin Amendment capped debit card processing at 0.05% and $0.21 per transaction, and interchange pricing for credit cards ranges from 0.65% to 2.4% plus a few cents for the auth fee, it is pure profiteering that PayPal and Stripe charge this much to process cards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durbin_amendment

https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-usa-in...

Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#278

Post by supah »

nfm wrote: post #186
pc wrote: post #93

(Stripe cofounder.) Hi folks -- as Edwin points out elsewhere in the thread, the article title isn't accurate. (I'll update or delete my comment if it's fixed.) [Update: it was changed. It used to read "Stripe is now charging 0.5% more for recurring charges."] You can happily make recurring charges yourself and no additional fees are incurred. Lots of Stripe customers do this and we don't charge anything extra for it…

Long term Stripe customer across multiple companies here. I'm ok with paying for services like this that provide loads of value. I expect there's increasing diversity in terms of Stripe's customer base and how they use the product, and trying to pick a single percentage price point that works across all of them is no longer feasible. That said, I'm quite unhappy with Stripe's pricing as an AU customer. We're paying e…

use pin payments they can take and settle in USD just ask them and they are an AU company. similar fee structure as stripe 2.x + 30c

Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#279

Post by supah »

pc wrote: post #189
nfm wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term Stripe customer across multiple companies here. I'm ok with paying for services like this that provide loads of value. I expect there's increasing diversity in terms of Stripe's customer base and how they use the product, and trying to pick a single percentage price point that works across all of them is no longer feasible. That said, I'm quite unhappy with Stripe's pricing as an AU customer. We're paying e…

Yep, heard loud and clear. We've been investing a lot in USD (and other currency settlement) in various markets (and actually just released it in Singapore). We're working on it in Australia too.

won’t this eat into your revenue since you won’t make money on the exchange ?

Re: Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

#280

Post by Samin100 »

jb775 wrote: post #245
edwinwee wrote: post #29

Edwin from Stripe here. It’s worth distinguishing between charging money on Stripe (for which you incur payments pricing) and using Stripe Billing (which is a separately-paid product). Stripe Billing has had this pricing for a few years. For some longtime users of Subscriptions, we originally didn’t change their pricing but are doing so now. We think charging a separate fee for our Billing product is fair, given comp…

At the end of the day, you're using electricity to send around a bunch of 1's and 0's. The amount of electricity used doesn't change much whether it represents $10 or $100,000...so why do you need a percentage of the total? I understand existing banking structures already work on the percentage model (so there's probably downstream percentage-based charges Stripe must pay), but why can't this entire banking structure…

Cost-based pricing rarely makes sense for software products, as almost all products are just “sending around a bunch of 1’s and 0’s”. If that were the case, almost all software would cost just pennies a month.

I’m not a fan of Stripe’s price increase for recurring plans either, and I think they could’ve communicated it better, but their pricing is far from unreasonable given the amount of research and engineering effort they put into the product that I don’t have to do myself.

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