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Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

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Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#81

Post by edwinwee »

tiffanyh wrote: post #73
edwinwee wrote: post #60

First off, yes, Stripe uses Stripe to bill our own customers. In fact, for our larger customers who have negotiated complex pricing plans, we're currently migrating much of our manual billing to a system that's inspired by Stripe Billing. Second, this article seems to miss the point of Stripe. It seems to want to build a platform, which is what Stripe Connect is designed for. For example, charging a percentage fee is…

> First off, yes, Stripe uses Stripe to bill our own customers. This is confusing because you’re implying that Stripe Billing is used internally but another employee clarifies and says it’s not, it’s simply another billing service was created that predates Stripe Billing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33193807

Sorry, to be clearer—we are moving away from the old billing service my colleague mentioned and to a new one. Our new system shares similarites with the Stripe Connect + Stripe Billing flow I mention above (specifically https://stripe.com/docs/api/usage_records).

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#82

Post by gamblor956 »

hklgny wrote: post #80
edwinwee wrote: post #60

First off, yes, Stripe uses Stripe to bill our own customers. In fact, for our larger customers who have negotiated complex pricing plans, we're currently migrating much of our manual billing to a system that's inspired by Stripe Billing. Second, this article seems to miss the point of Stripe. It seems to want to build a platform, which is what Stripe Connect is designed for. For example, charging a percentage fee is…

I would be shocked to learn you’re using stripe billing and checkout sessions successfully internally - those products are so convoluted in how they overlap and don’t as to be unusable. All but the most basic use cases are a nightmare to both implement and then track rev Rec on. So much so that you’ve got a whole new product dedicated to trying to figure it out. If that were the result of a dog-fooded product I’d be…

Agreed, at my company we have a fairly complex custom reconciliation process set up just to reconcile our stripe billings.

In contrast, reconciling pretty much every other payment processor is relatively straightforward.

Somewhere along the way Stripe went from being developer friendly to becoming more convoluted than Java.

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#83

Post by kurrik »

hklgny wrote: post #80
edwinwee wrote: post #60

First off, yes, Stripe uses Stripe to bill our own customers. In fact, for our larger customers who have negotiated complex pricing plans, we're currently migrating much of our manual billing to a system that's inspired by Stripe Billing. Second, this article seems to miss the point of Stripe. It seems to want to build a platform, which is what Stripe Connect is designed for. For example, charging a percentage fee is…

I would be shocked to learn you’re using stripe billing and checkout sessions successfully internally - those products are so convoluted in how they overlap and don’t as to be unusable. All but the most basic use cases are a nightmare to both implement and then track rev Rec on. So much so that you’ve got a whole new product dedicated to trying to figure it out. If that were the result of a dog-fooded product I’d be…

We’re always working on making Checkout and Billing gel together better, and our Revenue Recognition product automates ASC606-compliant accrual revenue reporting including automatically recognizing data from Stripe Billing. Have you talked to us yet about your use-case? Could you email me at ark@stripe.com?

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#84

Post by [deleted] »

marcosdumay wrote: post #58
randomdata wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you used your own product wouldn’t you learn some issues that exist within it? Isn't that the worry? Say a bug in your timekeeping software underreported hours worked and that lead to workers not being paid their agreed upon rate. When it goes to court you now have to prove that you didn't maliciously introduce the bug to save on employment costs, whereas if it is a third-party providing the software it's their…

>"Conflict of interest" is ultimately just another way to say "I don't want to assume the liability when things go sour". No, it's not. It's "malice is not a reasonable explanation for things going wrong". It only changes liability when it follows malice, what is much rarer than you seem to think. It is also a way to assure people that you won't do something bad.

[deleted]

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#85

Post by ridgered4 »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #35
tiffanyh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twilio is the same. They use Zoom & Slack internally, not their own video and chat offerings. Dogfooding is a good thing. You’d be surprised how few companies actually do it (which is terribly shocking).

"Dogfooding is a good thing" That gets repeated a lot but I have observed the opposite when you have a diversified company dogfooding an internal product that isn't strategic in their portfolio, or is targeted at a market segment that the company doesn't belong to. I have seen companies hamstring themselves by using a product that isn't the best offering for them or a poor technical fit, only because it is their own…

Also if your product is adware, full of dark patterns or generally hot garbage it might be really frustrating to use!

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#86

Post by blast »

edwinwee wrote: post #81
tiffanyh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First off, yes, Stripe uses Stripe to bill our own customers. This is confusing because you’re implying that Stripe Billing is used internally but another employee clarifies and says it’s not, it’s simply another billing service was created that predates Stripe Billing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33193807

Sorry, to be clearer—we are moving away from the old billing service my colleague mentioned and to a new one. Our new system shares similarites with the Stripe Connect + Stripe Billing flow I mention above (specifically https://stripe.com/docs/api/usage_records ).

You say it shares similarities with Stripe Billing. Above, you say inspired by Stripe Billing. "Similarities" and "inspired" are weasly ways of saying that it is not Stripe Billing.

It used to be that Stripe could be relied on not to do this sort of corporate doubletalk. The OP asked a direct question and you've given a misleading PR answer.

I'm sure you're a nice person just trying to do your job, but your inevitable PR posts to HN, within minutes of anything Stripe-related coming up, are hurting your cause. The Stripe of the past would never have spewed propaganda like "This is the point of Stripe. A single stack that flexes with your business as it grows and pricing that's public" into HN threads. It's embarrassing, and what it's telling us is that culturally you've lost your way.

Maybe that's inevitable on your way to world domination, but if you guys can no longer communicate honestly or treat readers as intelligent, you'd be better off not posting here. I like Stripe, by the way. I know this is harsh but I would like it to be helpful.

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#87

Post by clintonb »

devmor wrote: post #55

This article comes at a welcome time for me. I've been building out a usage-based B2B product and have wracked my brain on how to properly implement billing (without having to pay large upfront fees or integrate a more complex gateway that I don't really need). I'd never heard of Lago before but I think I'll give it a try.

https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/usage-based

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#88

Post by hklgny »

kurrik wrote: post #83
hklgny wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be shocked to learn you’re using stripe billing and checkout sessions successfully internally - those products are so convoluted in how they overlap and don’t as to be unusable. All but the most basic use cases are a nightmare to both implement and then track rev Rec on. So much so that you’ve got a whole new product dedicated to trying to figure it out. If that were the result of a dog-fooded product I’d be…

We’re always working on making Checkout and Billing gel together better, and our Revenue Recognition product automates ASC606-compliant accrual revenue reporting including automatically recognizing data from Stripe Billing. Have you talked to us yet about your use-case? Could you email me at ark@stripe.com?

I appreciate the offer. We are very much working closely with you on implementation and have from the start (over 6 years spanning many of your products). I am very familiar with all of your offerings.

The core of stripe is great, we’re fans. But as you add any complexity you end up with a mess of various internal account balances to maintain. It forces you into gross things like bin packing refunds, complex internal transfer fail handling. Toss in the inconsistent handling across connect and man, you’d be better off just going back to basic charges and ignoring all the value adds.

Re: Why doesn't Stripe use Stripe Billing?

#90

Post by ghiculescu »

yeutterg wrote: post #70
traceroute66 wrote: post #54

Xero is the same and it really pisses me off. In Xero you've got something called a "Xero Network ID", which is an ID that you can give to other Xero users and they can link it to your contact record on their account, which means that invoices they raise are automatically posted in your Xero account without you having to lift a finger. Now, you would have thought that Xero would do the same for their subscription inv…

Slightly off-topic, IMO Xero has really gone downhill. The Yodlee integrations with banks fail so often these days, it makes it hard to use the product at all. When you refresh a bank/credit card feed or log in for the xth time, you have no expected timeline as to when the feed will update or whether it will even work. There are multiple buttons to reset a feed, and they do different things. It's nearly impossible to…

It’s really unclear what everyone at Xero does these days. Their main product development seems to be keeping up STP compliance, and trying to move add-ons onto their new App Store. I haven’t seen an exciting new feature in a long time. (Their business development team, by contrast, seems pretty busy.)
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