Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stripe migrates Stripe Subscriptions users to more expensive Stripe Billing

stripe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 331 posts

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

#71

Post by edwinwee »

onassar wrote: post #66
tebbers wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a pricing increase? It's just their pricing for Stripe Billing. It's been 0.5% since at least 2018 which is when I started using it. I'm not sure why this has suddenly exploded on HN.

I think it's because Stripe has for a long time branded themselves as being priced simply. Reading that there is a price increase, I think, warrants a noticeable reaction, since it could mean a new 0.5% cost for every business relying on them. That can be a lot of money for some people, and in general, I'm a bit disappointed that I found out about the Billing product increase through HN. I would have expected to get…

The changes would absolutley not go into effect today—they would start next year, January 15, 2021.

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

onassar wrote: post #66
tebbers wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a pricing increase? It's just their pricing for Stripe Billing. It's been 0.5% since at least 2018 which is when I started using it. I'm not sure why this has suddenly exploded on HN.

I think it's because Stripe has for a long time branded themselves as being priced simply. Reading that there is a price increase, I think, warrants a noticeable reaction, since it could mean a new 0.5% cost for every business relying on them. That can be a lot of money for some people, and in general, I'm a bit disappointed that I found out about the Billing product increase through HN. I would have expected to get…

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by lotsofpulp »

unethical_ban wrote: post #42

The idea that the ongoing cost of moving money between parties varies on the amount of money moving is very "sus" as they say. Whether they move $10,000 in a transaction or $3, roughly the same number of bits move, the same number of algorithms kick off, and so on. Is there a cost-based rationale for doing a percentage-based pricing model, or is it really "because they can"? I could brainstorm and say "fraud" or "def…

The pricing everything, in general, is “because they can”.

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

#74

Post by abfan1127 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #61
paxys wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is easier said than done. Managing recurring billing is a significant engineering problem, and getting tied in with a provider and paying a surcharge is still worth it over maintaining an entire in-house dev team to do it.

In my experience, it should be no more difficult than sending recurring emails. You should have all the data (PaymentProcessorCustomerID, LastBillingDate, etc), run it like you would a email with a retry queue.

its more than that. The "What ifs" get out of control pretty quickly. Prorating, canceling, expired/canceled cards, tend to create a ton of end cases.

For instance, a person pays for Feb 15 to Mar 14, the card expires March 1, then the person requests a cancellation Mar 7 and wants a refund.

Its not impossible, it just takes a lot of time and effort to weasel out all of these end cases.

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

#75

Post by ihsw »

edwinwee wrote: post #71
onassar wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because Stripe has for a long time branded themselves as being priced simply. Reading that there is a price increase, I think, warrants a noticeable reaction, since it could mean a new 0.5% cost for every business relying on them. That can be a lot of money for some people, and in general, I'm a bit disappointed that I found out about the Billing product increase through HN. I would have expected to get…

The changes would absolutley not go into effect today—they would start next year, January 15, 2021.

What do you say to users that have zero interest in the Stripe Billing product and do not want to pay for a product that they do not use?

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

#76

Post by markdown »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #49
globile wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing has happened for Radar for example. We set up our whole infrastructure with their beta 3DS and Radar products, and then one day (a few months back), it is $ 0.07 per txn in Radar as well as no returned fees on refunds. Stuck with nowhere to go. Not against improving margins, but customers that have walked hand in hand with Stripe for so long and seen them thru their early growing pains should definitely be…

Why should they be grandfathered?

Because it

> would be the cool thing to do.

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

#78

Post by whimsicalism »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #46
alooPotato wrote: post #12

We (Streak yc s11) signed up for Stripe way back in the day and have just been paying their standard payment processing fees for years. We haven't upgraded our API version or used any of their new billing features or anything like that. Basically we get the same value from Stripe we did from the day we integrated. I thought our pricing was going to be grandfathered but this change will cost us tens of thousands of do…

An extra 0.5% is going to cost you "tens of thousands of dollars"? You're literally moving millions of dollars a year through your billing platform. That's not a little bit of money. That's a lot. Own it. You're not a hostage. You're deeply integrated through nobody's fault but your own.

> You're literally moving millions of dollars a year through your billing platform. That's not a little bit of money. That's a lot. Own it.

Nobody said it was a little bit of money? Where is this comment coming from?

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

#79

Post by NeutronStar »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #49
globile wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing has happened for Radar for example. We set up our whole infrastructure with their beta 3DS and Radar products, and then one day (a few months back), it is $ 0.07 per txn in Radar as well as no returned fees on refunds. Stuck with nowhere to go. Not against improving margins, but customers that have walked hand in hand with Stripe for so long and seen them thru their early growing pains should definitely be…

Why should they be grandfathered?

Did you even read the comment?

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

#80

Post by kempbellt »

sigwinch28 wrote: post #46
alooPotato wrote: post #12

We (Streak yc s11) signed up for Stripe way back in the day and have just been paying their standard payment processing fees for years. We haven't upgraded our API version or used any of their new billing features or anything like that. Basically we get the same value from Stripe we did from the day we integrated. I thought our pricing was going to be grandfathered but this change will cost us tens of thousands of do…

An extra 0.5% is going to cost you "tens of thousands of dollars"? You're literally moving millions of dollars a year through your billing platform. That's not a little bit of money. That's a lot. Own it. You're not a hostage. You're deeply integrated through nobody's fault but your own.

Without knowing their business model, it really doesn't matter how much money is moving through their system. It could very well be that they have a lot of buyers because of a very low profit margin and this actually has a notable impact on the company's finances.

Saying you are "held hostage" might be a bit of a dramatic way to phrase it, but for some companies a change like this actually makes a difference. Such is the life of relying on any third-party services though.

Also, pointing out "faults" is not helpful. It's unproductive conversation. Many companies are built upon third-party services that they are (probably falsely) under the impression will not change. It's not your "fault" if you decide to use AWS services and become deeply integrated and they increase their prices by 10% and you can no longer afford their services... It's no one's fault. It's just unfortunate and all you can do is try to work around it, or close the company.

Post reply on HN