As far as I can tell this is just dashboard and api only. But I guess they're moving towards that. Ironic as the connect partners that helped them grow are now having their toes be stepped on. Not a nice way to play. Burn the community who helped you get there in the first place.
You can't expect that Stripe doesn't expand their feature set. Seeing that there are hundreds of services built around stripe (https://stripe.com/works-with/types/stripe-extensions) it's really expected that some of them will be cannibalized eventually.
Subscription billing has been in Stripe for many years... it's just been very weak until now. Totally makes sense for them to work on this and if you built a subscription billing company on top of Stripe you should have known it was only a matter of time before theirs got better.
They’re also shooting themselves in the foot. They’re without a doubt less competitively positioned from a developer POV now. In my opinion. Even from a startup who isn’t technical. More percentages just get scary when you have people like Braintree keeping it simple...
Also Stripe still rely on their partners to drive business to them at the end of the day. No denying that it’s a big part of their funnel. A startup looking at their offering cold now will just be confused as well. What even is it? Some people think it’s a checkout when it’s not. It’s just s slightly more advanced subscription api with a price tag.
Also by cannibalising their partners will dry up their eco system. Chances are the partners do a better job as they’re focused on it. Can’t be perfect at everything.
I’ll see what they have to say on the call I have with them tomorrow.
To be clear there is no doubt it’s a sensible direction and a great product but charging for it is not IMO. Superior product will drive more business to them regardless. The market of payment gateways is competitive already.
But congrats and good job Stripe. Just reconsider the pricing.
Of course, I’m just saying to charge for it when they built their success on this is leaving a bitter taste... the community that made them are being pushed aside in favour of short term profit
It seems on par with many platforms in the past. Twitter, FB, Paypal etc. See what was built on top, see what is succeeding and they add that to the offering.
As a connect platform partner this is a bit of a blow as this impacts our customer acquisition funnel, we drive customers to Stripe and then they use us.
I have been talking with Tara who has been very helpful on this matter but wanted to pitch in here.
I think from a connect platform partner stand point it comes across as a bit inconsiderate almost.
I have already seen some people immediately put off considering using Stripe now due to the additional fees and complexity. It just doesn't seem to sit well.
The Subscriptions API was the main reason for Stripe's success and now it's being charged for, why not charge for the dashboard usage and leave the api users alone?
Turn and burn it seems