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Comment by fmx | Hacker News Reader

  What are your fees?
  Tips at time of donation. You decide.

If payment is required to use a service then that payment is not a "tip" - it is a "fee". Anything over the required payment would be a "tip". This FAQ answer implies that the required payment is zero, which, it turns out, is false.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with charging a fee for a service, but there is something wrong with lying about it.

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> There is absolutely nothing wrong with charging a fee for a service

Agreed, but percentage-based fees can quickly become an unfairly large part of payments. I love the idea of this project, but I'd prefer there to be a 5% or X dollars minimum, so that if 5% is more than X dollars, then it doesn't force 5% minimum. If I'm donating $500 to 45 projects, then each project on an even split is getting $11, but thanks.dev is getting $25 even though their service isn't actually in use by my app/service. Seems unfair to me.

My guess is that more than half of that $25 goes to the payment provider (Stripe etc.). Maybe more.

The remaining ~$10 will go to thaks.dev to cover operational costs, administration and other expenses.

I don't expect them to work for free. If you think it's unfair, contact the developers directly to see if you can wire them money (to avoid PayPal fees). If it's too much work, you can pay services like thanks.dev that does the work for you.

Then they should call it what it is: A fee (to cover operational expenses). It's still not honest to call it a tip.

(And now I'm realizing that American tipping culture may be playing in to differing expectations here...)

EDIT: I see they have now updated their wording.

> half of that $25 goes to the payment provider (Stripe etc.)

Surely they are not making a transaction for every patron/maintainer combination, but rather batching the payments.

Otherwise yes this is a Stripe charity :)

Why on earth would you think that a payment provider is taking 50%? They take ~3% + 30 cents

It's literally public information

Please take more time to read the context. If you read the post that I replied to instead of jumping to conclusions, you will find that you are incorrect

$25 refers to the 5% fee of the total amount ($500) that the site takes. I said that more than half of that fee is used to pay Stripe.

You're right @fmx. Have now updated the FAQ per helpfulclippy's suggestion. Thanks for pointing this out!

How do you suggest we can better word/explain it?

"We charge a 5% minimum fee on each payment. If you like what we do, you have the option of leaving a tip."

Actioned. Thank you helpfulclippy! :)

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