[HN Gopher] Changes to Stripe Billing
___________________________________________________________________
Changes to Stripe Billing
Author : mik3y
Score : 51 points
Date : 2024-07-10 21:07 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (support.stripe.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (support.stripe.com)
| binarymax wrote:
| This is the text I received in an email just now, which is for
| people on the 'Starter Plan' and easier to understand than the
| linked article.
|
| 1. Today we're deprecating the Billing Starter plan (your current
| plan) and moving all customers to a single, comprehensive plan
| that includes all of Stripe Billing's features. Your pricing will
| change from 0.5% to 0.7% of Billing volume. However, we'll
| maintain your current pricing for one year, until June 30, 2025.
| Pricing of one-time invoices through Stripe Invoicing is
| unchanged.
|
| 2. We're also introducing subscription-based pricing for Billing.
| This can make your monthly costs lower and more predictable
| compared to pay-as-you-go pricing. Learn more and switch plans in
| the Stripe Dashboard.
| chirau wrote:
| This sounds like a pretty significant increase. This is like 40%
| (or 60%?) increase, no? The new pricing seems to bundle 'volume
| billing' and 'invoicing', was the latter previously free?
| dinobones wrote:
| I love Stripe, blah blah blah, Stripe has "good" le docs and good
| dev experience and w/e.
|
| But now that they have market share they are seemingly becoming
| more greedy.
|
| I think they are overplaying their hand. There's no reason that
| these charges should be %-based. And I'm almost certain for large
| enterprise customers they're not; there's probably custom
| negotiated contracts for those cases.
|
| I hope we get more players in this space that can force them to
| be more competitive on pricing.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| They are in a valuation trap based on forward looking
| fundamentals.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I don't get why every tech company wants to IPO especially
| profitable ones. I'd much rather stay private with my money
| factory, and if I need some loans to expand, then so be it.
| Microsoft did it for Azure, look how well that worked out. I
| feel like a lot of companies do worse after going on the
| Stock Market. The stock market is where long term companies
| go to be screwed on a whim.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| When you IPO, you're getting wealthy off of Other People's
| Money flowing in creating liquidity. When you have to buy
| out existing cap table folks (either through enterprise
| cashflow or financing), it becomes harder. An artifact of
| ZIRP evaporating after entire businesses were built on the
| VC IPO flip model (and profitability becoming king over
| growth at any cost).
|
| Very similar to the PE crunch currently in progress for the
| same reason: interest rates that rose fast and will remain
| higher for longer.
|
| It will take time for everyone's expectations and actions
| to reach the new macro reality, with current participants
| attempting to "find a way out" that is most favorable for
| the circumstances.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| Because the employees at these companies don't share in the
| "money factory" mentality. Personally I'd rather work
| somewhere and get paid well and have stability, but
| unfortunately most businesses just pay "market" which is on
| par with those who offer options.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| When you're a VC, you expect 9 out of 10 to utterly fail.
| So you need that 1 out of 10 to turn into a high-growth
| Unicorn.
| ptero wrote:
| Most employees expect an IPO exit if a business is
| successful. I suspect that "if we hit it, we will share
| profit with you" would be a lot less attractive for an
| employee.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Most of the world runs on engineering done by folks not
| expecting an IPO payday (and instead, base, bonus, work
| life balance, etc). >90% of startups fail and never have
| a payday [1]. Employees will find opportunities elsewhere
| and expectations will need to more closely align with
| reality for those holding out for the "before times" that
| are unlikely to exist again [2].
|
| [1] https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/ |
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40363262
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11112367
| ptero wrote:
| Of course, but a small portion of the employees,
| disproportionately concentrated at startups, are willing
| to take a bet on an eventual exit. They accept a 90+%
| chance of a company going belly up and a 7-digit payday
| if it becomes a roaring success.
|
| But without an IPO it becomes a chance for a small
| royalty payment, and this is a lot less attractive
| success.
| pknomad wrote:
| I guess if those tech companies are VC-funded... isn't the
| whole point to IPO?
|
| I'm saying that's neither right nor wrong but there are
| examples of the good on both sides; Jetbrains and
| Crowdstrike seems to be doing fairly well despite staying
| private and going IPO, respectively.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >The stock market is where long term companies go to be
| screwed on a whim.
|
| What data do you base this on? "Long term" companies that
| do not choose to become publicly listed go out of business
| all the time. Some of them even get obviated by competitors
| who do choose to go public, and as a result, have a ton
| more money to outcompete the non public ones.
| Animats wrote:
| > But now that they have market share they are seemingly
| becoming more greedy.
|
| Of course. Go read Theil's "Zero to One" again.
| bigyikes wrote:
| Starter pricing was 0.5%.
|
| Scale pricing was 0.8%.
|
| Both plans were consolidated into a single plan which is 0.7%.
|
| This is good news if you were a Scale customer and bad news if
| you were a Starter customer.
| csdreamer7 wrote:
| Curious what people use besides Stripe (or Paypal) or if they are
| planning on moving away from it.
| a13n wrote:
| Adyen if you're big enough.
| b2bsaas00 wrote:
| There is no reason why this feature is % based. What alternative
| we have? 0.7% just to trigger a charge every month it makes not
| sense.
|
| For international card is 0.7%+3.9%=4.6% fee for payment!
| brianwawok wrote:
| Yup. Keep testing out those alternatives, I pay way too much
| money to Stripe every month.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > What alternative we have?
|
| A monthly plan: https://stripe.com/billing/pricing
|
| Ranges from ~0.62% (up to $100k/mo) to ~0.57% ($1M/mo).
| cmcaleer wrote:
| It's things like this that make me disappointed crypto didn't
| find favour as a payment option. I can transfer a million
| dollars instantly for ~free on (good) blockchains. Vendors
| aren't at the mercy of Stripe closing their account. They're
| not at the mercy of payment processors deciding they're not
| allowed to sell porn. The UX has improved considerably. It's
| not quite 'there', but much better than before.
|
| Yes as a user I don't get chargeback disputes. That's why I pay
| with crypto if I trust the vendor or if it's for a small
| amount. Sometimes the savings even get passed to me. If I want
| protection, I use my credit card.
|
| Stripe seem interested in this too given their push for crypto
| payments that's supposed to arrive soonish. I'm curious how
| much of the savings will get passed on to users. But maybe
| it'll just fizzle out again.
| czzarr wrote:
| as a years-long customer for whom prices keep increasing while
| product keeps getting worse (fraud detection and dispute handling
| in particular), I'm really hopeful that a decent competitor shows
| up soon.
| glzone1 wrote:
| The real question is what payment providers handle ACH well for a
| reasonable price. Say lots of $500 invoices. Underlying costs on
| the ACH platform is pretty low. Would love to find a $3 capped
| provider. Intuit is uncapped, so a $10,000 payment costs $100 per
| payment on their platform. Ouch!
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Anyone have any experience of alternatives and competitors?
| Kailhus wrote:
| Adyen is probably the closest one. Had no issue integrating and
| theirs docs were good
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-10 23:01 UTC)