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I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

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Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#151

Post by magicalhippo »

FpUser wrote: post #105
magicalhippo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our software is subscription-based, and our customers love it. They get a predictable cost over time, rather than large costs every now and then. We can afford to include features that otherwise might not be justifiable in terms of new sales. On the flip side, one of our competitors who hasn't switched has been struggling for years and a recent new version almost killed them off as many customers didn't feel they cou…

>"They get a predictable cost over time, rather than large costs every now and then." For the software I buy one time price is often about the same as the annual subscription. With perpetual license however I often do not upgrade for years. So the perpetual licensing is a clear winner for me. I understand that SAAS can make sense for other customers but it is their choice not mine. I just simply do not buy software w…

> For the software I buy one time price is often about the same as the annual subscription.

That of course changes the balance. In our case the annual sum of the subscription is much less than that. More like 2-3 years before intersection, though I forget as we've had this system for over a decade now.

It should be noted that we're also in a segment where customers will need a new version now and then as rules and regulations change.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#152

Post by dspillett »

While there are some valid points here, a lot of it seems to be moaning about having to pay for your own lack of good capacity planning, as if someone else should eat the cost of your estimates being inaccurate or plans falling through.

> That’s eight months of paying for nothing.

You signed up for a service. You stop using the service but don't cancel. How is that anyone else's fault? Furthermore, your accounting is so bad that you didn't notice for months. Making cancellation difficult and other similar things are dark patterns, this complaint though is just disorganised people trying to pass the buck.

> If you’d received an email before the bill hit

That would be nice, and many providers do that (I get an invoice for the dedicated server I don't properly use yet each month, which is a reminder that I should get around to the rest of the things it was intended for or downscale the operation), but you could also set reminders when you sign up for something, or keep an eye on your accounts.

> Unused seats? Still gotta pay for ‘em.

Ask yourself this: if you had customers who agreed to x00 users each and you paid for infrastructure and employed support staff to support this level of user activity, would you be happy to take the hit when half those user accounts don't all end up being needed? I doubt it, so you shouldn't expect other businesses to do so either. Your planning failure is not someone else's problem.

> But what if ... you actually ... wanted to add the seats. Well, the CRM would be only too happy to accommodate!

Again I wonder how much business the writer is willing to give away for free. There are no links to their own policies to suggest that they operate better than what is being complained about here - if such evidence existed I'd expect a noise to be made.

The real issue that is here sometimes is deliberately unhelpful bracketing of payment plans, jumping straight from 20 to 100 to 1000 seats with no provision to pay for a smaller amount of extra seats (perhaps at the 20-plan per-seat cost) because you need 110. But simply expecting to maybe not have to pay at all for the extra is a sign of a distasteful entitlement personality defect.

> I’d love to know if you’ve seen or experienced these dark patterns — or worse!

Ah, the infamous “please gift us free content for our future articles”!

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#153

Post by dragonwriter »

pontifk8r wrote: post #131
CPLX wrote: post #23

These are far from the worst patterns. I've seen so much awfulness out there. My favorite recent one was a renewal if you don't cancel by a deadline that's months ahead of the actual end of the contract period and it also had a substantial rate increase and all the language that we supposedly agreed to wasn't actually present in the contract we signed. Those terms were in one of those "incorporate by reference" claus…

We all need a special version of this document we can bring to health care provider visits, something to the effect that they agree to inform of and get consent for any products or services that are Not covered by insurance BEFORE they are provided, since of course they are experts in medical issues and billing.

> We all need a special version of this document we can bring to health care provider visits

Which they will the decline to sign and require you instead to sign there standard, cleared-by-their-legal consent to treatment form before providing any services.

If you could afford the kind of providers that would be willing to even consider a nonstandard agreement, this probably wouldn't be a concern you would have in the first place.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#154

Post by DocTomoe »

encoderer wrote: post #27

Of all the nasty things somebody can do with billing, I'm surprised the author leads with card-upfront trials. "Free trials should not require a credit card." This is opinion presented as fact. This is not a dark pattern. Totally unrestricted free trials are wonderful, you've invested a ton in your product and you want a prospective customer to experience everything. But there are legions of abusers and bad actors of…

I might be conservative here, but I will never trial a service that requests highly sensitive information and then makes me trust they won't sell that information to some third actor. Credit card first just screams "SCAMMER SITE" to me.

These days, I have a virtual credit card that allows me to change the CVC on demand, for just these kinds of services, and with that I void the use of this card for dark pattern payments immediately. If I think your service is worthy, I might give you good data.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#155

Post by tzs »

ssss11 wrote: post #144
encoderer wrote: post #27

Of all the nasty things somebody can do with billing, I'm surprised the author leads with card-upfront trials. "Free trials should not require a credit card." This is opinion presented as fact. This is not a dark pattern. Totally unrestricted free trials are wonderful, you've invested a ton in your product and you want a prospective customer to experience everything. But there are legions of abusers and bad actors of…

From one individual user’s perspective - card upfront trials mean that there’s a good chance either (a) I don’t want the product but will be unable to cancel the account due to dark ux/cx or (b) I’ll forget about the trial period and begin being billed then go through hell to get out of it. I much much much prefer a no ties trial, even if you restrict functionality, volume or some other thing which makes it not useab…

> I’ll forget about the trial period and begin being billed then go through hell to get out of it

OK, this is probably a stupid question...but when signing up for a trial of product/service X, why not put a "decide on X" item on your calendar for sometime near the end of the trial?

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#156

Post by CPLX »

pontifk8r wrote: post #131
CPLX wrote: post #23

These are far from the worst patterns. I've seen so much awfulness out there. My favorite recent one was a renewal if you don't cancel by a deadline that's months ahead of the actual end of the contract period and it also had a substantial rate increase and all the language that we supposedly agreed to wasn't actually present in the contract we signed. Those terms were in one of those "incorporate by reference" claus…

We all need a special version of this document we can bring to health care provider visits, something to the effect that they agree to inform of and get consent for any products or services that are Not covered by insurance BEFORE they are provided, since of course they are experts in medical issues and billing.

I have crossed out terms in a standard health care release and given it back without anyone saying anything. So that’s one data point.

I’ve also repeatedly been asked to sign one of those electronic signature pads as the signature to a document that I am not actually seeing. Which is a ridiculous thing to even consider as a workflow. When that happens I just sign the words “not shown document” instead of my name and move on.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#157

Post by Griffinsauce »

mitchdoogle wrote: post #137
awillen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general I don't think it's fair to describe anything as a dark pattern this is clearly communicated in a contract. Same with "Here’s a similar problem with a different scenario: You sign a one-year contract with a SaaS provider. You start paying immediately. The process to get API access, build integrations, set up the software, and onboard and train your team takes three months. In those three months, you still p…

This is like arguing nothing is unethical as long as it's legal.

Sure but the amount of seats is close to the most basic of specifications for a contract. Its not unethical to say "tough cookies" here - it's literally the entire purpose of the contract to make this agreement. You weren't tricked or forced, you just made a bad judgement or have bad luck.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#158

Post by [deleted] »

SilasX wrote: post #86
flerovium wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about effort. The seller is asking you to put in the effort to enter your payment info in order to use the "free" version of the product. It's an exchange. The seller benefits because there is less friction to paying later. The dark pattern is billing the card without consent from the user, or some weird implicit consent.

> The seller is asking you to put in the effort to enter your payment info in order to use the "free" version of the product. Yes, and they bear the cost of the users scared away by the extra step, so it’s sort of self limiting. > The dark pattern is billing the card without consent from the user, or some weird implicit consent. Yes, that’s valid to call out as a dark pattern, but the parent quoted the article as say…

[deleted]

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#159

Post by Gentil »

encoderer wrote: post #27

Of all the nasty things somebody can do with billing, I'm surprised the author leads with card-upfront trials. "Free trials should not require a credit card." This is opinion presented as fact. This is not a dark pattern. Totally unrestricted free trials are wonderful, you've invested a ton in your product and you want a prospective customer to experience everything. But there are legions of abusers and bad actors of…

Credit card for trial is a dark pattern from the end user's perspective for sure.

Cos, that is one more place where the end user have to risk his/her/their PII. This is especially important considering the end user is trying the product out. The person has no idea whether they will invest in it or not. Yet, the person have to worry about their information leaked when he/she/they see this company on the news for a data breach.

Also, another problem is the overhead for the company on managing this data. The security, PR situation if this gets leaked. It's expensive and unnecessary. This is a risky business unless you are a data hoarder who sells them at which point that is again bad for the end user.

Re: I analyzed SaaS billing dark patterns

#160

Post by chii »

Gentil wrote: post #159
encoderer wrote: post #27

Of all the nasty things somebody can do with billing, I'm surprised the author leads with card-upfront trials. "Free trials should not require a credit card." This is opinion presented as fact. This is not a dark pattern. Totally unrestricted free trials are wonderful, you've invested a ton in your product and you want a prospective customer to experience everything. But there are legions of abusers and bad actors of…

Credit card for trial is a dark pattern from the end user's perspective for sure. Cos, that is one more place where the end user have to risk his/her/their PII. This is especially important considering the end user is trying the product out. The person has no idea whether they will invest in it or not. Yet, the person have to worry about their information leaked when he/she/they see this company on the news for a dat…

what if the card transaction was handled by a well known processor? The SaaS business doesn't actually have to store the card details themselves - and this can be made clear.
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