I guess the point was, that "feature" was the only value-add we cared about, but not enough to pay thousands more per year for effectively the same service - accepting credit card payments.

Your sales team walked away from the negotiations after a while because we weren't willing to pay significantly more just to have the brand "Stripe" be part of our business. It really was a "but, but, we're Stripe! AI! Why don't you just agree to the terms? AI!!! Did we tell you about the AI!?!?!".

I suppose it was Stripe's loss in the end... and I imagine we're not the only company that had this experience.

I have the impression Stripe's "bread and butter" are small-time shops (partnered with Shopify where 99% of sites generate < $1MM annual), hobbyists, and similar smaller operations that either can't negotiate better rates due to low volume, or don't know they can negotiate better rates due to high volume. Nothing is wrong with that - it just means Stripe isn't a good fit for companies with significant volume.

Hm, no bueno. And sorry about that. I'd love to see that thread if you could forward it to me at edwin@stripe.com.

haha we had a similar story with a company (not payment tough) all they said was AI, we are better, so we charge more. but who cares if you charge 10x more than your competitor, with 10x more you need to be at least 100x better.

This often happens when companies make a good product and then let salespeople entirely take over the customer facing culture.