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Comment by onassar | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for jumping in here so quick. I'm sure it'll be a tough thread, but something about this response rubs me the wrong way. It doesn't seem like it's really addressing the change (eg. why is it worth _existing_ customers to be paying an extra 0.5%? The fact that Stripe added features for new customers doesn't really impact those of us who have been with you for 5-10 years). Additionally, I don't recall getting an email about the price increase.

I genuinely don't even know: am I going to be seeing this price increase? Would have liked getting an email about something like this, rather than finding out on HN, and now having to dig into things to figure out if I'm actually affected (which I presume I am).

To give you a comparison: if my bank or credit card company increased their rate, I'd expect to be (and am) notified of that.

My two cents :)

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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.

IIRC, Stripe used to have a "subscriptions" API at no extra cost. A few years ago, when they launched Billing (with the 0.5% fee), they moved everyone over to that but grandfathered in the old pricing. Now they're making everyone pay for it.

They've been chipping away at the grandfathered accounts this year.

What bothered me the most was earlier this year when they stopped refunding fees when issuing refunds. They rolled out a feature during the early days of the pandemic, and in the same week they started charging older accounts for refunds https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22371330

Is there anyone left that refunds fees? Paypal stopped last year and AFAIK all of the other processors also keep the fee.

Amazon payments apparently does: https://pay.amazon.com/help/201212280

> If a refund takes place, you will also be refunded the following transaction fees:

> - The domestic processing fee (for example, the 2.9% fee)

> - The cross-border processing fee (for example, the 3.9% fee)

> Note that the Authorization fee and Disputed chargeback fee are non-refundable.

So it looks like Amazon Payments holds onto the 30 cents but refunds the variable part. It's obviously not zero, but for a $100 domestic charge Amazon's 30 cents is much less than the $29.30 that Stripe pockets.

> $29.30

God I hope the decimal is just in the wrong place there

It is, but as they also added the extra 0, it indicates they were actually out by a factor of 10 in their math, it wasn't just a typo.

> but for a $100 domestic charge Amazon's 30 cents is much less than the $29.30 that Stripe pockets

Is this true?

No, it'd be $3.20. 2.9% + $0.30/transaction.

$2.90 + $0.30, you mean?

Braintree only takes the $0.30 and refunds the percentage.

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 an email from Stripe, maybe a month ago, saying "Hey: our rates are going up on 12 November"

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

Thanks for the clarification on the date of prices going up

Careful. They might want to develop one more dashboard - showing you structure of the fees and their changes. Brace yourself for another 0.5% fee to pay for it

Yes, you'll be emailed—if you were on the old Subscriptions pricing and are using Billing now, the emails are going out now (most have already been sent). Email me at edwin@stripe.com and we can also check.

And to be crystal clear, the emails should be done sending today. The changes—which will take effect on January 15—only apply to businesses that have had at least $1M in lifetime billing volume (or will cross that threshold this year). All others can continue to have Billing for free.

If this million dollar threshold had been made clearer, I imagine a decent chunk of the people who are upset by this change would have reacted differently.

Cool thanks

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