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